


Another Earth is Online

by Eristastic



Category: Prisonnier | Prisoner - Faith Kean, 地球上線 - 莫晨歡 | The Earth is Online - Mo Chen Huan
Genre: Established Relationship, Games, Gore, Survival Horror, character focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 163,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: New games, new monsters, new bosses, new lore. What it says on the tin: another earth is online.No knowledge of either series required for reading; set-up is taken from The Earth Is Online but it’s also re-explained.(honestly I’m just putting it on ao3 to make it easier to share with multiple friends, but if anyone else feels interested, you’re welcome to hop in. otherwise it is a party of 2 in here)





	1. Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Why would you launch yourself into a (probably) 60K+ fic that only 2 or so people will ever read?’  
> I’ve done worse.
> 
>  
> 
> As in the description, this is just the characters of a book no one in the Anglophone world has ever read, set in a cnovel world. I like things niche. 
> 
> To anyone who might be here from Earth Is Online: the focus is definitely on the games, though I can’t promise my games are as complex as the original’s, but it’s also on character development. Basically, if you liked the murder game stuff and wouldn’t mind a bit more emotional consequences, here we are. The first few games are fairly simple; I’ve tried to make floor 2 onwards more interesting
> 
> To anyone who might be here from Prisoner: lmao I’m kidding no one’s here from Prisoner.  
> (but seriously, don’t expect the characters to be exactly the same as in the original, and there are a lot of OCs)
> 
> To any friends who might be here just to see what I’m up to these days: a good day to you

On the 15th of May 2017, the black towers appeared.

This was regarded by most as a nuisance on an otherwise quite nice Monday. It was regarded by the rest as a blemish on an already unfortunate Monday. In sum, popular opinion was not favourable, particularly among the world’s leaders who frantically scrambled to investigate this new unknown threat. Like picking at a scab, scientists and military forces and plucky journalists all converged on the towers, and found nothing, repeatedly. All that could be surmised was that there was one black tower for every 10 000km2; that they hovered a respectful distance above the earth’s surface; that there was no apparent negative effect on the surrounding wildlife; that they did nothing. They could not be breached or harmed. No countries or terrorist groups or bored billionaires came forward to claim responsibility. Time passed, experts continued to find nothing, the towers continued to do nothing, and people grew used to their presence. Life moved on.

 

Six months later, the black towers began to sing.

Nobody quite knew what to make of this. Regardless of time zone, people flooded the streets; for those not close to a tower, news reporters rushed to film them as childlike voices sang in pleasing harmony for approximately five minutes. By this time, almost everybody’s eyes were on the towers, and those whose weren’t probably wouldn’t care if they missed it anyway.

The singing stopped. Breaths were held. Then, projected from every tower in every country in every language, a bright child’s voice said, “Ding dong! November 15th, 2017. The earth is online.”

 

 

***

 

 

People had been disappearing from Ren’s group chats. He hadn’t noticed, the first day after the black towers had announced that the earth was online, whatever that meant. People had freaked out: he’d assumed his friends were doing what everyone in his village was doing — trying to contact family, get time off, sort their own lives out. By the second day, things had started to feel weird. It was just the slight wrongness of a friend who always replied emphatically not replying, or another friend who always had her status set to available showing up as offline.

That was the day Ren’s father hadn’t come back from work. He’d only gone in to check things, he’d said: his office (like Ren’s mother’s, like the university, like most places) was closed until further notice. He hadn’t come back. Other people in the village had started to disappear, too. It had become clear on the first day that the police couldn’t do anything about it. Nobody knew what was going on, and nobody wanted to suggest the worst.

< _at least we_ _’re missing calc_ >

Ren looked down at the notification that had just popped up on his phone, momentarily obscuring the news app he’d opened like a masochist. Giving up on that (it was all just confusion and inaccurate statistics, anyway), he switched to Discord and sent Sam back a half-hearted key-smash, followed by < _kinda think I_ _’d rather have that_ >.

< _you actually do the seminar exercises tho_ >

< _not well_ >

< _but you do them_ >

< _fair_ >

Outside, small birds were chirping at each other. That and the rumble of the dishwasher were the only sounds in the house. Meek autumn sunlight poured through gauze curtains covering the lower half of the windows, onto his jeans. He was sprawled on the living room sofa, tapping his foot against the armrest, and he had nothing to do: classes were postponed, nobody was around, and you couldn’t exactly relax and put on a film in an atmosphere like this. If he tuned everything out and just focused on how quiet the village was, nothing seemed wrong, but there was a latent kind of tension that had been buzzing around since the 15th. It was the 18th now. The news was nothing but uncertain, irregular updates; the TV was full of static and reruns, as if to gently lure the viewer back to a time where the black towers were just towers; the internet was full of theorising and arguments and obnoxious reaction videos from people looking for ad revenue, when the connection worked. It had been working less, lately.

His phone buzzed again. He switched it back on, swiping over the photo of him and his friends that was his lock screen.

< _how_ _’s haruka_ >

Sam was heroically trying to find things to say.

< _mum_ _’s fine_ > he replied, as the dishwasher began to beep for attention. < _she_ _’s in liège rn, smth about finding a coworker_ > Then, in case Sam asked after his father, < _what about your parents_ >

< _in the house with me. mum_ _’s freaking out but dad’s p calm_ >

< _god I wish that were me_ >

< _you_ _’re not?_ >

< _idk_ >

< _look. if we all die. at least this is cooler than the apocalypse we were supposed to get in 2012_ >

< _still would have preferred zombies_ >

It was too hot in the sun. He thought he’d have to move soon — have to empty the dishwasher, definitely — but despite the energy fizzing through him, he didn’t want to get up.

It was the uncertainty that gnawed at him. He didn’t know what was going on with the towers: no one knew. He didn’t know why or how people were disappearing. He didn’t know what was going to happen now, or how long this would continue for. He didn’t know where his father was. He didn’t know what to say to Sam, either: he wasn’t usually the silent type, but it was difficult to talk when they kept coming back to the same problem they didn’t actually want to think about — but they had to keep talking. That was something everyone had worked out early on: now people were disappearing randomly, you had to keep checking in. His mother was texting him every half hour now she was out of the house. He was constantly messaging his friends. Vike was sending him regular updates on how she and Einierre were getting on, halfway across the world. Apparently things were just as chaotic in China: more so, actually, because she was in a city and all Ren had for reference was this small Belgian village where only birds could be heard.

He forced himself to his feet. He’d empty the dishwasher: that was something practical and productive. He’d do that. Quickly answering the message his mother had just sent him with an absent-minded heart emoji, he left his phone on the coffee table and went through into the kitchen.

The chorus of birds was louder in this part of the house, loud enough to hear above the clatter of cutlery as he put it away. He wasn’t good at identifying birdcall like his mother was: he just listened, because he was too tense to put on music like he usually would, finished emptying the bottom drawer, and he was just taking well-used mugs out of the top when the birds stopped chirping.

Ren went still. All of a sudden, his bones felt light with nerves — but that was stupid, right? The neighbour’s cat had probably just climbed into their garden again. Putting the mugs down, he looked out of the kitchen window, and saw nothing unusual. No birds, at all, but that wasn’t strictly _unusual_ : he didn’t need to go creeping himself out when the world was already happily doing it for him.

He was just looking to see if the cat was there after all when, in the gaping silence, he heard the dim, distant sound of shouting from the fields beyond his garden. Worried now, he lifted himself up on the counter to get a better look, but all he could see was a slither of field and then the forest beyond it. The shouting was still there.

For a moment, he hesitated. He knew he wasn’t a genius or anything, but he liked to think he was better than the average horror movie character, and nothing about this scenario spelt good news. But he weighed the dread rising in his throat up against the impossibility of staying put when he’d been trapped in tension for days now, and ran to get his shoes.

The eeriest thing about it, he thought, was that there was no other noise. All the birds had disappeared. He couldn’t hear cars or farm machinery or even people talking: it was just distant shouting that grew louder as he left his garden and headed over the field. He began to jog: soft earth crumpled under his feet, unseasonably bright sun beat down on his back, and the shouting became loud enough to hear.

“I can’t believe this!”

It was a girl’s voice, high and scratchy, and Ren didn’t recognise it.

“This day just gets worse and worse! I told you not to fail, and now I have to wait for _another_ one!”

Ren began to slow down. He’d had a bad feeling about this from the start but by now it was a warning siren screeching in his ears. But he couldn’t just go home, could he? He couldn’t turn his back on the first thing that had actually happened in days. Cautiously, he climbed up the last slope that would then lead down to the edge of the forest; he crested it, and it was only once he had that he saw the fairy.

She saw him first. Before he’d had a chance to falter at the sight of her, she’d spun around in a flurry of flower petals and glitter that seemed to pop in the air. She was about three-quarters his height, held aloft in the air with multi-coloured wings, golden curls shining in the…

But there was no sun. One second the sky had been there and the next it wasn’t: ripping his eyes from the fairy, Ren looked around, but there really wasn’t any sky anymore. It was as if the field and the forest and everything in between was inside an enormous white room. He couldn’t work out where the light was coming from, and as he took a step back, just about ready to go back home after all, he felt an invisible wall behind him, locking him in.

“You!”

Heart in his mouth, he turned to look back at the fairy. “Me?”

She was pointing at him, revealing a grubby black claw where her nail should have been. “Do you see anyone else?! Get down here! Why are all you humans such idiots? I’m in a hurry!”

Gingerly, Ren walked down the slope to meet her. He had to concentrate so as not to slip: when he reached her level, he looked up, and saw the bodies. They were lying at the edge of the forest, at least three of them, and it was like all the air had been snatched from his lungs: he choked, and felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He couldn’t see clearly, not from this distance, but he recognised at least one of them. He knew her, saw her in the bakery sometimes, but he didn’t know her like this, not lying with her arms bent the wrong way, clothes ripped to show raw flesh, dark blood pooled around her, smeared over her skin, and—

“Are you _listening?!_ ”

A hand grabbed his jaw, claws digging into his skin, and then all he could see was the fairy. Framed by golden curls was a face like a skull with ashy skin plastered over it. There was no spare flesh or cartilage. Pitch black eyes glared at him from deep sockets, and narrowed.

“I don’t have the time for this,” the fairy said. “The frog prince’s ball has probably already started and I’m here waiting on useless humans. The spider seamstress has just finished my new dress: go and get it for me.”

Ren’s brain wasn’t working. He heard the words, but his mind was full of the sight of bodies, of the disappeared sky, of the face right in front of him. He said, “Get it…for you?”

“Yes!” Frustration was ugly in her snarl. “This is why I hate being involved in anything before the second floor: you’re all so gormless! Go into the forest and get my dress,” she said, letting him go violently; her claws ripped the skin of his throat, leaving white-hot lines of pain. He stumbled, his gaze falling to his feet.

This couldn’t actually be happening. For a start, fairies weren’t a thing. Secondly, the sky was gone, and that didn’t happen. Thirdly, people weren’t killed in his village, ever. This was some kind of sick joke. That was all. This wasn’t actually happening.

He looked up.

The fairy was still glaring at him, glitter flying off her like sparks from a fire. The stench of blood and open flesh had reached Ren’s nose now. The sky was still gone.

“I…”

Before he could figure out what he was going to say, and before the fairy could yell at him for it, a childlike voice rang out over the field.

“Ding dong! The game ‘Fetch my dress!’ has been triggered. At 13:27 on November 18th, 2017, the player Ren Delacroix has safely entered the game.”

Hearing his name, Ren jerked his head up, trying to see where the voice was coming from, but still there was nothing but that unforgiving white.

The voice continued. “The rules of the game are as follows. First, there are many spiders in the forest, but only one is the spider seamstress. Second, only the spider seamstress is safe to visit. Third, the player has one hour to complete the mission. At the end of one hour, the forest will close. Fourth, only corpses can leave the forest once it is closed.

“The player has entered the sandbox, the game map is complete, the data has loaded…”

The voice stopped.

Ren stared into thin air, unsure what had just happened. It was the tower’s voice, without a doubt: he’d heard it first-hand three days ago from the tower near his university, and countless more times from videos of the announcement. But a game? Why would the tower pull him into a game?

“You’d better hurry up,” the fairy said, dragging him back to reality, her voice a threat. “You’ve got fifty-eight minutes left, and I’ve wasted enough time on you people as it is.”

Fifty-eight minutes. He looked down at his watch, then up at the fairy, then over to the forest. Then — trying desperately not to look at the bodies lying by the trees, flesh gouged out in chunks that lay scattered around the corpses themselves — he began to run.

The forest was quiet. There were no birds here, not a whisper of life but his heavy footsteps, his regulated breath. Running was something he knew how to do, but his heart was a butterfly beating itself against a window; he couldn’t be calmed by the repetitive thuds of his feet into the earth. He didn’t get this: he didn’t get any of this. What the hell was happening? What was he supposed to do? Find the spider seamstress, he’d been told: was he supposed to find a spider? One spider in an entire forest? Was the tower serious? But there was nothing to suggest it wasn’t.

The forest was the way it had always been. Tall, greyish trees on uneven ground, the earth covered with dead leaves crushed into an amalgamation of browns. The only difference was that there was nothing but white visible through the trees, now. Nothing else stood out. There had to be some kind of signage for the spider seamstress, he decided, his mind feverish. There was no way there couldn’t be. It was physically impossible to search this forest for one spider in an hour, so he just had to look out for something strange, something notable.

Nothing came.

After ten minutes of running (forty-eight minutes left), he heard something like the frayed edge of sound: a little longer and he thought it was the sound of running water, but it was distant, and almost drowned out by the pounding of his own heart. There was nothing to connect spiders with water, but it was something. Anything was a lifeline at this point, because he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Was this what the towers were for? Was this why everyone was disappearing? Was everyone getting trapped in games like this? Had this happened to his father too?

 He kept running.

After fourteen more minutes (thirty-four minutes left), he began to slow down. His breaths were long and disciplined from years of practise: he didn’t think about them, didn’t think about anything but trying to find something that would lead him to the spider seamstress, but there were no signs. The forest was exactly the same as it ever was. The running water was still far away. There came a crack from behind him, and — remembering that the tower had mentioned other spiders — he began to run again.

The cracks didn’t stop, but he didn’t turn around to see what was following him. His mind was beginning to fog up. He needed to think, needed to think so badly that he couldn’t: how could he think? Thoughts came to him instead: images of those bodies at the edge of the forest. He felt sick. The images kept coming back to him. If he failed, was he going to end up like that too?

Twenty-six minutes left. Nothing had changed: there was the faint sound of water, the occasional crack and creak from behind him, and nothing else but stale air rushing past him, blowing his fringe back where it wasn’t stuck to his forehead with sweat. Infuriatingly, nothing had changed. Ren didn’t know what to do.

There were eighteen minutes left by the time he slowed to a stop again. His pulse quivered in his throat, but he stood quite still, concentrating on everything he could hear and see. Something cracked behind him, and he flinched.

It wasn’t his imagination, he thought. Nothing had changed. The sound of running water was as far away as it had been when he’d first registered it. He didn’t think that he would get anywhere, no matter how far he ran.

With this realisation, fear gripped him: had he wasted all that time? What was he supposed to do now? He whirled around, ready to run again, and, like a light had been switched off, the forest was cast into darkness. The blinding white that had replaced the sky switched to an unnatural dark blue, like a child’s interpretation of the night sky, but there was moonlight coming from somewhere. It was shining down on the space right in front of him, and he saw something shine: a thread suspended in the air.

Time was running out. He followed the spider’s thread further into the forest; in two minutes (fifteen minutes left), he had come to a clearing.

The entire thing was covered in cobwebs that glittered in the moonlight. There was space in the middle, but the edges were walled up with openings like funnel-web spider nests. There must have been at least twenty of them, with black holes ranging from the size of a normal spider to the size of Ren’s torso. Each of them had a little bell attached to the silk.

“Ding dong!”

He flinched.

“The main task ‘Find the spider seamstress’ has been triggered,” the tower announced cheerfully. “Please choose the right nest and pick up the flower fairy’s dress!”

He was going to have a nervous breakdown. How the hell was he supposed to choose the right nest from twenty of them? He could hear scraping and scuttling from inside the nests, but even as he stepped carefully into the clearing, he couldn’t see inside any of them.

“Um,” he said, hating how unwelcome his voice felt in the clearing. “Is the spider seamstress here?”

There was no reply, but he really should have expected that. There was more scuttling, and he swallowed. His hair was standing on end.

He could barely think at all, but he had to be logical about this. The only difference he could see in the nests was their size: maybe it was based on the flower fairy’s size. Maybe only a big-enough spider could sew a dress for her. After some deliberation, he decided that the second-largest nest looked about right, but he couldn’t bring himself to go near it. Each time he tried, images of ripped-open corpses surged in his mind. Biting his lip, he turned around, wishing for some kind of answer, or confirmation, and stopped dead when he caught sight of movement across the clearing.

It took him a moment to make it out: it was a small moth, caught in one of the cobwebs. The moonlight was shining on it just at the right angle to catch its wings.

Five minutes left.

Too scared to seal his fate just yet, Ren took slow, hesitant steps towards the moth, and — glancing up at the nearest nest every second or so, just in case anything came out of the darkness — he lifted the moth loose from the cobweb. It fluttered in the air, as if testing its wings, and then crossed the clearing lazily to sit on a dead leaf near the smallest of the spider nests.

Ren watched it. It didn’t move.

“Are you…are you telling me the answer?”

With decadently slow movements, it opened and closed its wings. The clearing was soaked in moonlight and those wings were the only movement.

“You have to tell me,” Ren said, a note of hysteria working its way into his voice. “I don’t get this. You have to tell me if that’s it.”

Predictably, the moth did not.

“It’s just…I thought I had to match it to the flower fairy’s size. But I guess there’s no reason a small spider couldn’t sew a big dress or something. But then why would a small one be the answer?” He tried to think over everything that had happened, searching for some way to justify the answer the moth was apparently giving him.

There were three minutes left when he, pulse thrumming in his ears, remembered the bodies again. Why were corpses allowed outside of the forest once it was closed? There was no point to that. It couldn’t just be the tower’s way of doing things: the entire point was that people had been disappearing, not showing up mutilated. So why were they there? Just to scare him? Or were they a clue too?

The image of them had seared itself into his brain. All of them had been hurt by something much, much larger than a normal spider.

With two minutes left, Ren couldn’t take it anymore: he knelt by the nest the moth had led him to, reassured himself that he’d probably be able to at least run away from a very small spider if this was wrong after all, and rang the minuscule bell attached to the nest.

For ten seconds, nothing happened. Then there was the sound of scuttling, and a spider crawled out of the nest. It looked like any spider Ren had ever seen — all legs and hair — but in a low, gravelly voice, it said, “What do you want?”

Ren swallowed and said, “I’m here for the flower fairy’s dress.”

There was the unmistakable sound of the spider clicking its tongue. It shuffled back into its nest, and when it next came out, it was dragging a dress no larger than two bluebells sewn together.

“Now push off,” it said, and left.

Ren looked down at the dress, and picked it up. As soon as he had, the unnaturally blue night sky snapped to brilliant white again. The scuttling stopped.

Legs wobbly, he got to his feet and, praying that the time limit didn’t include the time needed to get back to the flower fairy, began to walk back. The moth followed him.

 

 

“It took you long enough!”

The flower fairy pounced on him the second he came out of the trees: he held out the dress so she could take it, but that didn’t stop her carving deep scratches into his palm in her fervour. Holding the dress up to the light, she frowned. “Shoddy workmanship. She cheated me again, the bitch. Not like I have enough time to get a new one, though. What a pain.”

“Is it over?”

He couldn’t stop himself from asking, but regretted it the second the flower fairy turned her glare on him. Even in bright, not-quite-daylight, her face was chilling. But she said, “Sure. Why not. You did better than that lot, anyway.” She pointed dismissively at the corpses Ren wouldn’t look at, and then smirked at him. “Bet you couldn’t have done it without the moon god helping you, though.”

“The what?”

“That thing on your shoulder,” she said, nodding at the moth. “They blessed you and helped you cheat. How like them to ruin my fun. Though I guess I couldn’t have got the dress if you’d failed…but I really would have liked to see you get what you deserve for being such an idiot, too…” With an expression of great internal conflict, she pocketed the dress, and shrugged. “Whatever. You’ll be picked off soon enough,” she said as if to comfort herself, and turned to leave.

Ren watched her in a state of disbelief.

“Oh yeah,” she said, turning back to look at him with unfeeling eyes. “You can keep the silk you dragged back with you. That’s my reward to you. There, I did my part.”

With that, she flew away. The second she was out of view, the tower’s voice burst into life.

“Ding dong! The game ‘Fetch my dress!’ has been completed.

“Calculating game rewards…

“The player Ren Delacroix has won the game and obtained the rewards ‘Spider’s Silk’ and ‘Divine Retribution’.”

And that was it. As abruptly as it had disappeared, the sky came back. When Ren turned around, he saw that the bodies near the forest were gone. Looking around for some kind of answer to what had just happened, he saw that there was a bundle of cobweb around his right foot: he bent to pick it off his shoe and straightened up, holding it in both hands. Turning it over didn’t reveal anything unusual. It was only when, in testing the texture, he tapped it twice that words appeared to hover over the cobweb.

 

[Prop: Spider’s Silk]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: Sticks to and confines whatever it is aimed at for a maximum of 5 minutes.]

[Restrictions: Three-time use prop. With each use, the likelihood of it breaking under stress increases by 10%.]

[Remarks: (sounds of a lasso being thrown) yee-haw!]

 

The words faded away. In total bewilderment, Ren looked across to the moth that was fluttering near his shoulder. The flower fairy had called it a god. It looked like a normal moth. Ren was just about to ask it what it actually was, like an idiot, when it flew down to his forearm, landed, and lowered itself as if to touch his skin with its head.

The effect was electric. Thunderous energy ripped through Ren’s body: he put up no resistance when his vision began to blur and he fell to the ground.


	2. Goals

When Ren woke up, there were chains on his forearms. There were not usually chains on his forearms: blearily, he sat up and looked at them. It turned out they were only tattoos. Tapping them revealed the same sort of message that the silk had shown.

 

[Prop: Divine Retribution]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Rare]

[Level: 4]

[Attack: Strong]

[Function: Chains governed by the causality principle: cannot be broken. Once activated, they become an extension of the user's body and can move at a maximum of 175km/h.]

[Restrictions: To activate, ‘In the name of the moon, I punish you’ must be recited.]

[Remarks: The first of its kind.]

 

For a minute or so, he looked at these words. Then, out of drowsy curiosity, he said, “In the name of the moon, I punish you,” and held his arms out. All drowsiness was ripped from him when two chains burst from the tattoos, shooting nearly five metres before falling to the ground. It only took the mere thought that he wanted the right one to curl up for it to do so. Another thought, and they both lifted into the air again, and stayed there.

Ren thought he’d had more than enough for one day. He retracted the chains, picked up the bundle of cobweb, and got up. There was nothing in the field around him. The light seemed wrong, like it was morning rather than afternoon. Starving for normality, he hurried back to his house.

 

 

Normality never came.

He tried his best. He wiped his shoes of earth on the garden mat, and he put them in the gardening shoes basket, like he was supposed to. He finished emptying the dishwasher. He tried not to think about how the claw marks the flower fairy had left were only white marks on his skin now. He really did try, but when he went back to find his phone, it had no signal, no wifi, and no data signal either. It said it was the 19th. His laptop said the same, and had no wifi connection. Neither did his parents’ computers. The TV was static. The house phone didn’t work. The electricity wasn’t working. The water did, thankfully. That was something.

Ren did the best he could. He didn’t panic, though his heart was definitely panicking inside his chest, and if anyone had been there with him, he felt sure he’d have been panicking at them. But there was no one, so he internalised it. Sitting on the bed, he looked down at his phone, at the last few messages it had picked up before it had lost signal.

From Sam:

< _do you want to meet up tonight? I can get my dad_ _’s car_ >

< _hey, are you there?_ >

< _bro this isn_ _’t funny_ >

< _seriously are you there_ >

< _hey_ >

From his mother:

< _Sweetie, I might be a little late coming back, maybe 4-5._ >

< _Answer me when you can._ >

< _Ren, please answer. I love you._ >

There were three missed calls, but he didn’t check his voicemail. He didn’t think he had that in him. For some time, he stayed in his bedroom, looking down at his phone; when he thought he’d be able to, he got up, and went downstairs again. He had to do something. There was no sign that his mother had come back home: presumably she was still in Liège, so he just had to go and find her. He had his bike: it wouldn’t take more than an hour or two.

After filling a backpack with things he thought he might need (just in case, though he didn’t want to think what that case might be) and the spider’s silk, he locked up the house and went to get his bike out of the garage.

There was no one on the roads. That was normal until he got out of the village’s immediate vicinity, when dread began to pool in the bottom of his stomach. It wasn’t like when he’d found the flower fairy: this wasn’t anticipative dread, it was just empty. He switched to main roads after he realised no one was driving on them. Driverless cars were left abandoned, and he rode in between them, trying not to think about anything.

He’d been riding for an hour and a half when the tower spoke. It came unexpectedly: he almost rode into the hard shoulder. There were no black towers in sight, but just like all the other times, the tower’s sunny voice rang out across the world.

“Ding dong!” it chirruped. “462.93 million players have successfully loaded the game!

“Game saved…

“The game data is loading…

“Player information is loading…

“Save successful…

“Load successful…

“Ding dong!” came the voice, ringing like struck glass in Ren’s ears. “November 19th, 2017. All players are welcomed into the game. The three iron-clad rules of the black tower are as follows. First, everything is explained by the black tower. Second, 6am to 6pm is the game time. Third, all players please attack the tower.”

Ren stared up at the sky, but the black tower wasn’t finished. As if hitting down the final nail in a coffin, it said, “Ding dong! Happy games!”

Games.

That was what all of this was about, then. Games. Games like the one Ren had won through sheer, stupid luck; games that killed you if you failed. The tower had said 462 million players. There were 7.5 billion people on the earth. The other 7 billion couldn’t all have died in games. They couldn’t have. That sort of massacre wasn’t possible, not in the handful of days since the tower had announced the earth was online.

But Liège was essentially deserted when Ren got there. It wasn’t as if it was the busiest city in the world, but there was never just nobody out on the streets at midday. The few people he caught glimpses of either watched him warily or ran. He left his bike near his mother’s office and went upstairs, but only after breaking the window to open the door from the inside, because the electronic locks weren’t working. The building was empty. The nearby mini supermarkets looked ransacked, but the office was as if everyone had left for the weekend. Nothing out of the ordinary. No sort of message for him on his mother’s desk — just her work, a little row of collectible character figures, and a photo of their family. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to find.

He began to walk the streets, looking for something to do. He did not actually admit to himself that that was what he was doing. In his mind, he was looking for someone he knew: perhaps a co-worker of his mother’s, perhaps her. Perhaps his father. Perhaps the few friends he had in this city. He didn’t know. Aimlessness led him along like a fisherman reeling in a catch, but he never surfaced: for two hours, he walked, eventually keeping to smaller streets and alleyways out of some nervousness he didn’t understand himself.

It was nearing late afternoon when he was attacked. It came out of nowhere: one minute he was walking along a residential street lined with apartment blocks, the next he heard something, something like the first half of a footstep, and instincts he hadn’t known he possessed kicked in. Whirling around, he backed up against the wall of a building just in time to see the air where he had been ripple. It was like a mirage; through it, he saw a man on the other side of the street, scowling. The mirage disappeared.

“What…what was that?” Ren asked, and sucked in a breath as he felt unbearable heat around the level of his neck. He jumped away, glancing back to see that same mirage-like ripple in the air, and turned to see the man still scowling at him.

“Are you doing that?”

The man’s expression was dirtier now. He reached into his coat and brought out a knife. Heart pounding in his ribcage, Ren stepped back, trying to make sense of this.

“Why are you attacking me?” he asked, glancing around him for help. “I haven’t done anything to you!”

“Just give me your props and you can go.”

“My…my what?”

“Your fucking props, didn’t you hear?!”

The man was scared, that much was clear. Ren was scared too. He took another step back, and was just about to turn and run when a chill went down his spine: he leapt to the side, but it was too late, someone had already grabbed his arm from behind and he almost dislocated it trying to get away. With a yelp, he stopped, and the woman who’d caught him pulled him back, holding him in place.

“I don’t have any,” he said, struggling against her hands. “I really don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking—!”

He cut himself off in a hiss of pain as that searing heat sizzled around his throat and collarbone. He couldn’t get away: he felt it burn the skin, felt the incessant white scrape of pain, and, instinctively, yelled, “In the name of the moon, I punish you!”

The shock of chains erupting near her must have been enough to make the woman let go: Ren felt the pressure disappear, and ran without a second thought. If he had thought, he would have made an effort to incapacitate his assailants, but the urge to run was keening in his muscles: with speed quite unlike him, he sprinted away for several blocks, until he was sure he wasn’t being followed. Sinking to a crouch in the shadow of a small church, he put trembling fingers to his neck. The raw skin stung where he touched it and he quickly drew his fingers back. It hurt (of course it hurt) but it didn’t hurt as much as he’d have expected. Maybe it was just the adrenaline, but he’d run faster and for longer than he should have been able to, too. It was like being slightly off balance with no way to right himself. That wrongness was worse than the fear from the attack, and whatever that man had done to him.

Nothing was right. Nothing was familiar: he hugged his knees to his chest and tried to steady his breathing, because he could feel much-suppressed panic rising in his throat again.

All systems of communication were down. The vast majority of the population was gone, and he didn’t want to imagine where or how. There were no animals: he wasn’t sure about that, but he hadn’t seen a single bird since the previous day, not even the pigeons that normally swarmed city squares like flies in summer heat. Everyone had to play ‘games’ now, or attack the tower, or whatever it was they were supposed to do. Something weird was going on with his body. People attacked him without obvious prevarication. That man had used some weapon he didn’t recognise — or was it even a weapon? Either way, it was dangerous, and it had been used to hurt him. These were the things he knew, and could hold onto, and not one of them was comforting.

What was he supposed to do now? If he kept moving, where was he supposed to go to? He had no way of finding his mother, even if she was still alive: he had to admit that he didn’t know if she was. What if she was one of the 7 billion? What if he was alone now? He didn’t know how he’d get to anyone if he even had proof they were alive. He wasn’t sure he wanted to check — he couldn’t bring himself to snuff out the hope that they might be fine.

His head was spinning: he pressed the skin of his neck and tried to focus on the pain to ground himself. It didn’t help much. It just made him want to cry more.

But the last thing he could do was give up. With a deep breath, he got to his feet and began to walk again.

 

 

Chengdu, China.

Two women stood beneath the looming bulk of a black tower. The shorter one had straight black hair, black eyes with circle lenses, and two knives strapped haphazardly to her belt. She looked up at the taller, and said, “Are you sure this is going to work?”

The taller woman’s skin looked ashen in the shadow of the tower, far from her usual warm brown. Long, silvery hair was tied in a ponytail; she carried no knives, or any apparent weapon at all. In broken Chinese that betrayed study by imitation rather than books, she said, “Probably. It said ‘please attack the tower’. So we will.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

The taller woman turned around, and — as if to the shadows wrapped around the nearest building — said in English, “Stay near until we come back. If things go wrong—”

“If things go wrong I’ll march into that tower and fetch you myself. Both of you.”

“Thanks for remembering me,” the shorter woman said dryly in Chinese.

The taller woman smiled back at the shadows. “Be back soon.”

It was over within seconds. Whatever they’d expected attacking the tower to entail, it was nothing more than a peaceful transportation from one world to another. After they’d gone, the woman waiting in the shadows watched for a few seconds, then jumped and swore when the tower began to sing.

The singing was heard all over the world. It was not the same song as when it had first sung: this was a song of gratitude, saccharine from the voices of children. The tower was delighted. With apparent glee, it announced: “Ding dong! In China District 10, official player Huai Yue and stowaway Vike Larle have successfully opened the first floor of the tower. After three minutes, players in all of China’s districts will begin to attack the tower!”

The message was repeated three times — as with all the official broadcasts to date, it was announced all over the world, in all languages. The tower was delighted, and wished to share its delight.

 

 

The general reaction was shock, though admittedly more so for the Chinese district players than for the rest. Among the rest, there were those who began to get ideas. So that was what you were supposed to do to play this game. Who wouldn’t like to win a game placed before them? And how better to win than to take the first step? Now, the position of ‘first to open the first floor’ was taken globally, but if China had specific districts, then surely there must be other sets of districts.

This first step should beget more first steps. So the tower anticipated.

In northern Greece, a young man looked up at the black tower in the distance, barely visibly but for how it blocked out the moon, and plans whirred through his mind.

On the Sino-Soviet border, a baby-faced man pulled a knife out of the chest of the man he had just killed; blood spattered over his boots, and he bit his lip, calculating where District 10 might be, and how long it would take him to reach it.

And, in the cool enclosure of a hotel lobby in a minor Belgian city, Ren looked up from a vain attempt at sleep. Once the disbelief wore off, he felt he could have drowned in relief.

Strictly speaking, Vike wasn’t his actual sister. They were from completely different circles: she was the daughter of a British diplomat and had been shuffled through the private European school system; they likely wouldn’t have met at all if Ren hadn’t shown enough talent for track that his coach had sent him to the same fancy gym that Vike’s mother had chosen as the latest spot to abandon her for most hours of the day. He’d been 9 then; she’d been 14 but somehow it had worked and now, ten years later, she and her girlfriend were more welcome in Ren’s home than they were in their own. Einierre was currently doing her masters in China as a way to travel, Vike had gone with her, and it was Ren’s house they came back to for holidays.

They’d been planning to come back for Christmas this year too. It wasn’t a short flight. It would be much, much longer without planes. But what choice did he have?

The knowledge that at least one member of his family was alive and well was a balloon in Ren’s chest, buoying him up: he hadn’t been able to sleep earlier and certainly couldn’t now, so he began to pace. The lobby was small, the floor gleaming to a mirror shine that reflected the several fake ficuses, and he went around and around it, thinking. He couldn’t dwell on what he might have lost: this was not a rule he gave himself, but a simple inability. If he dwelt on it, he wouldn’t be able to get back up. He had to focus on what there was left, who there was left — and what else did he have to do, anyway? There was nothing left but the towers and games and a world full of things he didn’t understand. If he tried to make it to Vike, that at least would be a goal.

An amazingly impractical goal, but what else did he have, really?

He couldn’t drive so he’d either have to bike the whole way or find someone to take him. There, his steps slowed for a second as he remembered the burns on his neck (healing at a pace he couldn’t rationalise, but still there). He shook it off and began to pace again. He’d find someone. He’d hitchhike the whole way if he had to.

But what about her — how would she know he was fine? He had to hope that the tower would announce more things globally. If it was going to…it had said ‘first floor’. That implied other floors. Maybe the first person to each floor would be broadcast all over the world. He had to hope. He also had to attack the tower, if that was the case, because he needed to get to the second floor before anyone else did so she’d know, and he was apparently going to be behind the entire country of China at this rate.

It was a plan, though. It was something. He didn’t have much else now.

 

 

It took effort, but Ren managed to sleep for six hours that night, and when he woke up, it was 7am. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the world before 9am, but he didn’t feel tired. His burns had healed. He’d barely eaten anything since the morning of the 18th, but he felt hardly any hunger: it was probably nerves, he assumed, and forced himself to eat an apple and some of the energy bars he’d brought.

He’d decided he was going to head into Germany. It was in the right direction, and as long as he kept moving, he was bound to come across a tower he could attack at some point. Feeling terrible about it, he picked up a bike someone had left on the street, and began to ride, using what little he remembered of the times his family had driven into Germany.

It took a lot of rerouting. It was nearly midday before he was finally on the E40 heading east, and he was feeling quite good about that victory. He’d seen people watching him as he’d left the city, but no one had attacked him: another victory. A third, but not his own: halfway through the morning he’d heard the announcement that Vike and Huai Yue, a friend he now remembered Einierre mentioning a few times, had cleared the first floor.

It was enough to make him optimistic. If he ignored the cars left sloppily along the motorway, he could almost believe it was a normal day. The weather was about as good as one could expect from a Belgian November, and while the lack of birdsong was felt sorely, it was almost relaxing. Ren felt purposeful enough that, when he came up to a service station with signs of recent inhabitation, he thought he might try and see if anyone in there was friendly. These good intentions were intercepted when, just as he’d come to a stop, the black tower’s voice rang out over the motorway.

“Ding dong!” it said brightly. “In Europe District 16, stowaway Norhan Eppalai has successfully opened the first floor of the tower. After three minutes, players in all of Europe’s districts will begin to attack the tower!”

Ren froze. The message was repeated twice more; it was only after the tower went quiet that he felt he was able to move again. It wasn’t so much the disappointment that he wouldn’t be the first to breach Europe’s first floor — that didn’t matter, if what he was assuming about the tower’s announcements was correct — but the sudden realisation that he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to attack the tower at all. It was easy to talk about and make plans around it, but when he remembered the first game and the fear it had stirred up in him, he suddenly didn’t want to at all. What if he couldn’t rely on luck this time? What was he going to _do?_

There was no time to worry about it. Ren had just seen a man come out of the service station, staring at the sky with an expression of abject disbelief, when something began to happen to his body. It was light-headedness taken to a degree he’d never felt before, but before he could collapse, the world in front of his eyes began to clip in and out, losing more of itself as the milliseconds ticked by, and soon the motorway had been replaced by sand.

“Ding dong! The black tower’s first floor (baby’s-first-game mode) has been opened. The game is loading…

“Sandbox being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Esteemed guest, please make your way to the sheriff’s office!”

Ren blinked. It looked like he was in a desert. He’d never been in one before so he couldn’t be sure, but it looked like at least half the Westerns he’d ever seen. Rocky cliffs leered in the distance, and everything in between was sand. It wasn’t normal sand, though. Looking down, he realised all the grains were just too big for comfort. Choosing a direction at random, he began to walk.

It wasn’t actually hot. The sun was high in the sky, and if he shaded his eyes to look around it, he could see lines like might be drawn around a picture book sun to represent rays, but it didn’t seem to give off much heat. Other things were off, too: there were cacti dotted about, but not one of them was in a normal shape. They looked as if they’d been contorted into the shapes of bones. Like pollen, little white spore-like things were floating about in the air. Still, nothing was actively killing him.

It took another ten minutes of walking over the dunes to see something in the distance. Fifteen more minutes, and he reached a small town in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It seemed to be made up of one long main street and some scatterings of houses around it, with something that might have been a few farms a way away. There were figures walking among the houses: as Ren got closer, he saw that none of them were human. Most looked like mixes: something like stuffed animals that had been cut up and sewn together wrong, but they were walking like humans, and chatting with each other, and looking at him. He did not like the way they were looking at him. Subconsciously, he began to touch his forearms, ready to use the chains if he had to, but really, really hoping he wouldn’t have to. He steered well clear of the giant building with a sign saying ‘SALOON’ in peeling paint, since that was where most of the noise was coming from, skirted past a pair of kittens with ribbons around their ears and hooves like horses, and came up to an open-faced wooden building with a star on its sign.

There was a woman sitting on the front porch, smoking something in a long pipe. At least, he thought she was probably a woman. It wasn’t easy to tell. If she was a she, she looked like a human-sized lizard with donkey ears flicking away the occasional spore that wafted over to her; each time her ears flicked, the emerald earrings hanging from them glittered in the sunlight. Blowing out a cloud of pink smoke into the face of a half-beetle, half-dog creature who coughed and swore at her, she grinned up at Ren.

“Salutations, human,” she said. “Here for the sheriff?”

“Y-yes.”

“Well, how about that.” Her voice was creaking like old wood. “Been a long time since a human’s come to our little settlement. Most folks don’t like coming round, y’see. Scared the mutations are contagious,” she said conspiratorially, tapping her ear.

“Uh…are they?”

“Yes.” She laughed at his expression, and leaned forwards to rest her elbows on the thin legs coming out of her tail. Her eyes moved; Ren followed them to see a crowd gathering around him. He really, really didn’t like the way they were looking at him.

“Been a long time,” the lizard said again. “Haven’t had fresh human meat in some years, and the king’s men have got the other five all locked up inside there.” She jerked a tiny thumb back at the building behind her.

The sun did nothing for the chill seeping through Ren’s bones. The chains were powerful, but he didn’t think he could take the thirty or so monsters watching him right now. He stayed very still, the activation words on the tip of his tongue, and watched the lizard.

She grinned. There were scraps of red caught between her teeth. “Our hospitality’s special, y’know. Real special. But it’s got to be earned. Wonder if you’d be willing to answer a few questions for me, human?”

“Ding dong!” the tower sang happily. Ren was almost glad to hear it, in the midst of monsters who all looked like they wanted to eat him alive. “Branch 1 has been opened! Esteemed guest, please get inside the sheriff’s office!”

“Now,” the lizard said as if she hadn’t heard the tower at all. “Got three questions for you. I’m no hard-ass: you can answer in whatever order you like, no sweat. First: why does la Llorona weep?”

La what?

“Second: when will the sleeping king wake up?”

The _what?_

“Third: why is Cupid’s TV show so popular with grandmothers?”

The lizard took a drag on the pipe and pulled away to grin at Ren, eyes gleaming. “Go on,” she said.

He had absolutely no idea about any of the questions. He thought he might have possibly heard of la Llorona once or twice, but he couldn’t remember a thing about it, and he hadn’t a clue about the other two. As if to make things worse out of pure spite, someone behind him licked their lips audibly. His heart-rate was speeding up and his mind beginning to go blank, but he pleaded with his brain to work for once in his life. This was Branch 1 of a game in baby’s-first-game mode. If he couldn’t even do this, what chance did he have of ever surviving long enough to see Vike again?

Swallowing as if to wet his dry throat, he turned the questions over in his head, trying to see if there was some connection. He couldn’t find one. He searched again, and still couldn’t remember anything that might help him. Cold sweat was budding on the back of his neck.

This wasn’t fair! None of this was fair! How the hell was he supposed to know what any of those questions meant?! Why wasn’t it giving him something he could do? Why did he even have to answer some stupid questions to get inside?

He paused. Then, he turned over what the tower had said.

‘Please get inside the sheriff’s office’.

It hadn’t told him to answer the questions.

Gently pushing away a spore that had threatened to come near his eyes, Ren looked down at the lizard and said, his voice trembling, “I…I’m an esteemed guest. I don’t have to answer your questions. You just have to let me in.”

The lizard looked at him. The moment was held suspended in the air like the spores floating around him, and then it dropped. She glowered.

“Won’t make yourself no friends like that,” she spat at him. “Won’t make no friends at all.”

“Ding dong! Branch 2 has been opened! Please help the sleeping king’s knights!”

Ren didn’t wait to hear more. Without a backwards look, he darted up onto the porch and inside the door, slamming it behind him before any of the monsters had second thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the word 'baby-faced': appears  
> me and shay, in the BEYONCE??? voice: BAI RUOYAO????


	3. actually why am i giving these serious titles, there are two of us in this club

The sheriff’s office was pitch black. It took Ren’s eyes a few moments to adjust; by the time they had, the door on the opposite side of the room he was in opened, and to his dismay, a chess piece walked out.

It was a very large chess piece. Little feet came out of the base and waddled over to Ren; they retracted and the chess piece came to rest, towering above Ren’s head. It was a knight, and the horse’s mouth opened with a sickening scrape of stone.

“Human!” it bellowed, right in his ear.

Ren flinched and took a step back, looking up into expressionless stone eyes. “Y-yes?”

“Come with me!”

And the little legs came out again, waddling back to the door. Ren followed.

The next room was much bigger, so big that Ren couldn’t see how it could fit into the building he’d seen from the outside, and it looked something like a normal office. There were rows of standing desks and a great many chess pieces shuffling about on their little feet, talking to each other. The entire room was dimly lit with no windows to the outside: the main source of light was from a lower room at one end, accessible via stairs. Ren peered down and saw five people in something that looked like a police line-up. They were human: he felt relief before that was suffocated by the worry that he’d end up like that too. But no, the tower had told him to help the knights, hadn’t it?

“Human!”

Another bellow: Ren jumped and turned to the chess piece next to him. They were just at the banisters looking down onto the line-up.

“Find the stowaways!” the chess piece said in a voice that suggested it had never learnt to speak quietly.

“The…stowaways?”

The tower had used the word stowaway before. It had called Vike that, and the person who’d opened the first floor for Europe. But Huai Yue had been called an official player, and Ren’s props said official player too. He couldn’t immediately see a difference: he asked, “What are stowaways?”

“You don’t even know that!”

The room burst into a chorus of ‘He doesn’t even know that!’.

Ren wanted to back away, but there were only the banisters and a sheer drop behind him. “I…I don’t…”

“Stowaways!” the knight said. “Stowaways are vile creatures!”

“The lowest of beings!” the other chess pieces agreed.

“There are three kinds of humans left on your world! There are official players, who have fairly completed a tower game! These players have been granted abilities to honour their efforts! There are reserve players, who have won another game of some kind! There are stowaways, who have stowed away on this glorious tower game by killing other humans! They have stolen abilities! Stowaways are scum, and they disturb the sleeping king’s peace! We will eradicate them!”

This was met with general enthusiasm. Ren watched the chess pieces chant together in the dimly-lit room, his ears ringing with the sheer volume of it all, and he almost yelped in surprise when the tower chimed in.

“Ding dong! Main mission ‘Find the damn stowaways!’ has been unlocked! There are five humans to choose from. Three are reserve players and two are stowaways. If both stowaways are found, the official player Ren Delacroix and the three reserves will pass the game. If only one, or neither of the stowaways are found, the official player Ren Delacroix and the three reserves will fail, but both stowaways will pass the game. There is no official time limit, but depending on the players’ actions, the chess knights may run out of patience.”

Ren was led down the stairs to stand in front of the slightly-raised podium on which the five people were standing. There were three men and two women, all watching him with varying levels of concern. The chess knight told the other chess pieces to leave, and they toddled up the stairs; it turned to Ren, said, “Find the stowaways!” again, and then, to the five people, “Stowaways, we will find you!”

One of the men asked sardonically, “If you can tell he’s an official player, how come you can’t just pick the stowaways out yourself?”

“Insubordination will not be tolerated!”

Before Ren could realise what was happening, there was a flash of stone and a scream of pain. In less time than it took to blink, the chess knight had launched itself at the man, crushing his hand against the wall, and returned to its place. Apparently that was its job done: it waddled up the stairs after its comrades. Ren was left alone, backed up against a jumble of cardboard boxes that seemed to mostly contain documents, staring at the five people across from him. It didn’t seem like they could move: the man whose hand had been crushed was crouched, cradling it and hissing in pain, but he hadn’t made any attempt at running away. The podium was lit up: presumably Ren could see them better than they could see him. The rumble of the chess pieces’ conversation seemed distant, now.

“Um,” Ren said, and the other people looked at him. “Are you alright?”

The wounded man looked up at him. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with a mature kind of face, hair dyed a brilliant white and tied in a high ponytail. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice guarded. “Hurry up and choose.”

Ren had no idea how he was supposed to do that. He swallowed, and said, “Um…do any of you want to just…tell me if you’re a stowaway?”

The wounded man laughed unkindly. “Yeah, like that’s going to work. Great, he’s an idiot and we’re fucked.”

The man stood next to him looked down at him in a judgemental sort of way, then turned to Ren, smiling. “No stowaway’s going to out themselves, unfortunately. Reserves can’t help either: we’ve been told we can’t accuse others, just plead our own case. Why don’t we all try explaining exactly what we did in those days before the games started, so we can prove we didn’t kill anyone?”

The others either nodded, or at least didn’t protest. Ren stepped closer, hoping the man could see his gratitude. “Yeah, let’s do that! Can we go from…uh, from you, then?”

The woman at the end of the line looked at him. She was in her early twenties, skin the same shade of brown as her ponytail, and she was wearing sportswear. She looked at the others with a brief flash of uncertainty, then said, “My name’s Miya. I heard the announcement on the 15th and decided to lay low, so me and my sister,” —she nodded at the other woman— “grabbed some supplies and stayed in our apartment. When the tower did the whole ‘happy games’ thing, we came out to see what was going on, figured it wasn’t worth the bother, and went right back inside. Nothing really interesting happened. I don’t know how to prove to you I didn’t kill anyone, but I really didn’t, neither of us did. We just talked and tried to pass the time, mostly.”

That seemed solid enough. Ren said, “Okay. What about you?”

The man next to her paused. He was the oldest, seemingly in his mid-forties, or late thirties but had aged badly. “I’m Rohïswen. I also tried to lay low. I worked from home, and when my brother and his wife disappeared yesterday, I decided to try and find my nephew. He’s in Germany: I was on the way when I was dragged in here.”

Similarly solid. Ren began to wonder how he was going to work out who was lying.

The second woman stood up straighter. She looked like Miya but older and dressed sensibly: in a calm voice, without looking at Ren, she said, “Yrille. My sister already said it all.”

That was it. Ren waited for more, but it didn’t come.

The wounded man had stood up by now, though he was still cradling his hand. His hair looked translucent in the bright lights, and traces of sweat shone at the side of his face, but he was holding himself well for someone whose hand looked unusable. Ren didn’t want to look at it: he focused on the man’s face.

“Nothing all that notable happened,” he said. “I—”

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Do I have to give you my name?”

“I mean…would it hurt?”

The man raised a single eyebrow near-perfectly at Ren. “Try to focus on what actually matters. I’m Jewen. Does that make you feel better?” he asked in the tones of a primary school teacher.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer. Ren said, “Um. Yes.”

“Very good.” A brilliant smile, though it looked forced. “Anyway. I spent the time driving around to friend’s houses to see if they were okay, and mostly finding they weren’t. I got attacked by someone with powers once, but seeing as I don’t have any, I just had to run. Mostly I remember being scared, which I’m sure we can all relate to, and if you say you can’t, you’re a liar. I was just working out how best to attack the tower when this happened.”

Ren was beginning to worry very much that he didn’t have a way of figuring out who was lying. In a last ditch effort, he turned to the third man.

“I’m Roarsha,” he said, smiling. “I was at work when it all started. I tried to get home but all the trains were down, so I stayed with a co-worker. We just stayed inside, but at one point she faded away. I was left alone and didn’t know what to do, so I just wandered around for a bit, and then those two Chinese players opened the first floor and all hell broke loose.”

“Okay…thanks.”

So that was that. Ren thought back over what each of them had said, and considered despairing. He had no idea how he was supposed to tell who was a stowaway and who wasn’t. If some of them had been official players, he could have at least asked them to show him their ability — but wait a second, wasn’t he an official player? He didn’t remember having an ability.

No, it wasn’t the time to wonder about that.

Sitting on one of the cardboard boxes, he frowned up at the five people on the podium. They were mostly watching him; the sisters were looking at each other.

After about a minute, Jewen rolled his eyes. “This is a joke,” he said.

“Come on!” Roarsha gave him a vaguely pleading look. “It’s not like it’s easy to pick out the stowaways. Murderers don’t all look a certain way. I’m not saying she _is_ one,” he said, looking up as if explaining himself to the sky that was not visible through the ceiling, “but even Miya could have killed someone, and she looks like…well, that.”

“I look fine, thanks.”

“Didn’t say you don’t! Look,” he said, turning back to Ren, “try more questions, or we’ll never get out of this.”

“I don’t see why we’re even bothering,” Jewen said haughtily, looking over the others. “He’s not going to be able to do it, and we can’t accuse each other. Can’t the stowaways just out themselves? Do it for the greater good.”

“I don’t think murderers really care about the greater good, after a point,” Roarsha said cheerfully.

Jewen seemed like he was about to retort something when Rohïswen coughed, and they went quiet. He said, “I think it might be misguided to suggest that the stowaways are likely to be cold-blooded killers. The chess knights said that to become a stowaway, you only needed to kill someone. It could easily be out of self-defence.”

“Exactly,” Miya said, leaning over so she could join in without moving from what was presumably her allotted square of floor space. “They could have killed for any reason. Don’t set him down the wrong path.”

“Any path would be an improvement,” Jewen said dryly, and Ren flushed, but it didn’t look like the others were paying him any mind.

Miya added, “And anyway, isn’t this impossible? It’s not like the stowaways are going to give away who they are. Can’t we try and work together to get out of here instead?”

“Do _you_ think you could beat those monsters?” Jewen asked with what looked like faked interest.

Roarsha nodded. “He’s got a point: you’re not going to be able to fight the monsters. I doubt any of us would be able to, especially when only three of us supposedly have abilities. But the tower wouldn’t set up an impossible game: there’s got to be a way to beat it. Right? Why don’t you try asking what everyone did in all of our laying low? There might be a clue there.”

The five of them stopped talking; Ren watched them, and opened his mouth to answer.

‘ _You_ _’re not going to fall for that, are you?_ ’

He jumped. No one else reacted: he wasn’t even sure they’d seen his reaction, what with the difference in lighting, but then Miya blinked and looked over at the stairs. Everyone else followed her gaze. There, carefully making its way down the steps that were not built for a creature of its size, was a fox. It was white with little black-socked paws: nothing else looked off about it, but then it lifted deep black eyes to meet Ren’s, and he heard, ‘ _He_ _’s trying to distract you. Try not to let him._ ’

The fox picked its way down the rest of the stairs and hopped up onto the cardboard box next to Ren.

“What’s that?” Roarsha asked.

“Just another monster, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like the chess pieces, though.”

They began to bicker about what the fox was or was not; during this time, it curled up into a little ball next to Ren’s hand. He thought it might have just talked to him, but no one else was reacting, and—

‘ _I_ _’m speaking to you and you alone. Can you try not to let the others know I’m doing it, please? I don’t want them to know. Just act like I’m some random fox who decided it liked you._ ’

‘ _Is that what you are?_ ’

‘ _Why not._ ’

Tentatively, Ren reached out a hand and started to stroke the fox as a façade, and as something to keep his hands busy. Apparently it worked: the others seemed to have lost interest now it didn’t look like the fox was going to do anything.

‘ _If I were you, I_ _’d ask Roarsha what he was doing during his off-time, but don’t pay attention: I’d like to speak with you._ ’

Ren did so. Roarsha seemed more than happy to talk, and Ren kept his eyes on him, nodding every so often, but the second the story began, he asked, ‘ _You said he_ _’s trying to distract me. Why?_ ’

‘ _If he distracts you, time will run out. The knights are already impatient: he can see that, from where he_ _’s standing. You can’t. He knows that. He also knows that if the chess pieces come down and surprise you, you won’t answer correctly._ ’

‘ _But how do you know he_ _’s a stowaway? Isn’t he just trying to help me?_ ’

‘ _Oh, not at all, no. He_ _’s trying to gain your trust, that’s all. But he called the two Chinese players ‘players’ — that’s not damning, but it implies he’s heard the tower speak rather a lot. More to the point, don’t you think he seems very calm about all of this? Don’t you think he seems far too certain that the tower games are fair? I know that and you know that. He shouldn’t. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s already been through a game and killed someone to get out, but I don’t have to guess. The important thing is that he’s a stowaway. Now there’s only one left to find. Do you have any ideas?_ ’

It was asked as an examiner might ask a pupil, not as a teammate might ask for help. Ren could hear commotion above him now: in the lull as Roarsha finished his story, he heard one of the chess pieces wonder if it the stowaways shouldn’t have been found by now. His hand froze over the fox’s fur, but he regained control and continued to stroke, asking Jewen to talk next. Jewen rolled his eyes again and seemed angrier than before, but did.

‘ _It isn_ _’t him, is it?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’d be very surprised if it were. Why do you think it wouldn’t be him?_ ’

Ren nodded at whatever brief thing Jewen had told him, and asked Yrille to do the same. Her sister laughed and said that Yrille wasn’t very talkative: they’d stayed in the same house and done the same things so she’d better answer instead. Ren didn’t mind, and said so. While Miya talked, he replied: ‘ _Jewen just feels like he doesn_ _’t like me. He’s acting like someone who’s going to die because of someone else’s mistakes._ ’

‘ _I thought so too. What about the others?_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t think it’s Miya._ ’

‘ _Because she_ _’s more cheerful than the other two?_ ’

Perhaps. He couldn’t put it into words.

‘ _The aim of this game is to look past what people are telling you and to see what they actually are. It_ _’s an important skill. It’s alright if you don’t have it, but try not to leave it as “I think they seem nice”. We may be running out of time. What about the other two?_ ’

‘ _They haven_ _’t said enough. I don’t know._ ’

He really didn’t. He could see why Roarsha was suspicious, but none of the others had left such obvious clues. He wasn’t sure if Roarsha’s clues would have been obvious if they hadn’t been pointed out to him; he didn’t even know if he’d have thought they were obvious if he hadn’t been told. But he had no other ideas. He wasn’t good at doubting people.

There was a thud from the upper floor. Ren looked up to see a group of the chess knights talking: from their thunderous voices, he heard ‘go and check’. Fear wormed its way into his stomach.

“This is ridiculous,” Jewen said, laughing. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a clue and three of us are going to die because he’s too stupid to guess. Could you please _think_ for a start?” he asked Ren, a smile on his face and none in his eyes. “Just think rather than asking things that don’t matter! You can probably stall for time now, but they’re going to come back again and you have to know by then!”

“Let’s just team up!” Miya said, desperately. “This obviously isn’t going to work!”

‘ _It_ _’s her, then_ ,’ Ren thought at the fox as the first sounds of feet waddling down the stairs were heard. ‘ _She wants us to team up, which means she doesn_ _’t think she can win, so she’s the second stowaway._ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t think she is_.’

That time, he couldn’t help it: he looked down at the fox in surprise. It was still in its ball of white fur. The chess pieces were coming down the stairs with slow clump-clump sounds as they rocked against the banister.

‘ _Why isn_ _’t it her? She’s acting suspicious too!_ ’

‘ _I think she_ _’s protecting her sister._ ’

‘ _What?_ ’

‘ _It_ _’s just a hunch._ ’ The fox unrolled and looked at him. ‘ _I_ _’m not quite sure either. But my instinct is telling me it’s her sister, not her._ ’

The chess pieces reached the bottom of the stairs. They circled Ren, and one of them (possibly the one he’d first met, but he couldn’t tell them apart) said, “Human, it is time. Mistakes will not be tolerated! Dilly-dallying will not be tolerated! Your answer, now!”

Ren looked up at them nervously. “Can I have more time?”

“No! Your answer, now!”

From behind them came a heartfelt “Oh, _fuck_ ,” from Jewen, and the five of them began to argue again. It was broken up when Ren, trying to steady his voice, said, “He’s a stowaway,” and pointed to Roarsha.

Everyone paused. Jewen looked pleasantly surprised.

“Oh, wow,” Roarsha said as a chess knight came over to him. A smile spread across his face, “Good for you. But you still have to get the other one.”

He did, in fact, still have to get the other one.

“Human!” the chess piece roared, right in front of his face. “It was made clear to you that no dilly-dallying would be permitted!”

Ren stared into the cold stone eyes of the knight.

‘ _You think it_ _’s Yrille?_ ’ he asked.

‘ _I do. Will you trust me?_ ’

“Human!”

“The second stowaway is her,” Ren said, pointing at Yrille.

The five other humans stared at him. He knew, when he saw Roarsha and Miya’s expressions, that he was right. Panic had slipped into Roarsha’s; terror into Miya’s.

“No,” she said, trying to get out of the square she seemed trapped in, trying to reach her sister. “No, it’s not her. Choose someone else. Say you changed your mind. Say it!”

With leisurely movements, a chess knight came up to Yrille. She, not looking at her sister, looked back at it. “He’s right,” she said quietly.

“He’s _not!_ ”

No one paid Miya any attention. They were all watching the two stowaways and the chess knights. A nasty feeling coiled up in Ren’s stomach.

‘ _They_ _’re not going to…to kill them right here…are they?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’d imagine so. Monsters aren’t really about tact. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to._ ’

“Hey now,” Roarsha was saying, backing up into the wall behind him, but he seemed to realise he didn’t have anything to say. The chess knight in front of him was holding a spear in a diminutive hand sticking out at an odd angle from his stone body. It raised it; Roarsha looked down at it. Miya was still shouting.

It seemed to play out in slow motion. Ren couldn’t look away. He didn’t have the time to blink. With strength it shouldn’t have had, the chess knight shoved the spear up through Roarsha’s mouth, piercing through his skull with a crunch Ren felt in his gut. The spear protruded from the back of Roarsha’s head, glistening red in the light, and there was something hanging off the end. For a moment, it was held there, then the knight pulled it back, ripping through his face and letting his body crumple to the ground. There wasn’t much blood: Ren was surprised by that. That was all he could think before the urge to retch came upon his throat like a vice.

‘ _I really think you should look away now._ ’

He did. Dry-heaving with a hand over his mouth, he looked back at the comforting shadows amongst the cardboard boxes, and tried not to listen to the crunch of bone, the severing of flesh that could be heard over Miya’s screams.

His body was trembling. He hadn’t realised, but he was trembling now, and he had to clench his hand into a fist over his mouth. With a deep gulp, he managed to bring himself under control.

“Human.”

‘ _You can look back now. They_ _’re in front of the bodies._ ’

He turned around, fiercely focused on the stone knights in front of him. Miya was crying; there was no other sound, and he wouldn’t look over to see what the other three were doing.

“You have done the king a service. A reward is in order.”

They handed him a jar. It contained a few of those spore-like things that had been floating around outside. Tapping it revealed the same sort of message as the other two props he’d picked up.

 

[Prop: Completely Mundane Jar of Spirits]

[User: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Rubbish]

[Level: 1]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: Handily takes up space in your inventory. If you hit someone with it, it might hurt?]

[Restrictions: None.]

[Remarks: Some monsters like to eat them but I hear they get caught in your throat.]

 

Blankly, he looked down at it, and back up at the knights. “This is the reward?” he asked.

Three spears faced him instantly, and one of the knights snarled, “Do you dare belittle the king’s rewards?”

“I don’t!”

The spears were removed. The knights began to leave, and Ren looked down at the jar so he didn’t have to look at anything else.

He felt simultaneously numb and still nauseous.

‘ _It_ _’s not your fault_ ,’ the fox said matter-of-factly. ‘ _The tower asked you to root out the stowaways: you only did what it asked, and you would have been killed the same way if you hadn_ _’t. It’s distressing, and you’re perfectly justified in feeling that it is, but you should expect this sort of thing to happen again. At least the first floor’s over: that’s something._ ’

Ren didn’t really know what to say to that. He wanted to look up and convene with the other three players, but also very much didn’t want to. He sat, and waited for the tower to announce the end of the game.

 

 

It turned out that Rohïswen was the man Ren had seen at the service station before being pulled into the tower. Once it was all over, they saw each other and, with the awkwardness of two people who had just seen brutal death, agreed to travel together. Rohïswen could drive, at least: he said he’d take Ren as far as Fulda, the city his nephew was supposedly in. He seemed a quiet man: he didn’t talk much, didn’t ask any uncomfortable questions, and didn’t look too much at the white fox curled up in Ren’s lap.

Ren wasn’t sure how the fox had come back with him. When he’d come to, he’d been there, watching Ren patiently, and had introduced himself as Caïn.

‘ _If anyone asks, say I_ _’m a pet_ ,’ he’d said, yawning and climbing into Ren’s arms. ‘ _I don_ _’t like questions much. I’ll help you where I can. Good to be working with you, Ren._ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's chatting corner!
> 
> Hosgard: I just want to see my wife...  
> Me, rushing through the first games to get to the ones I want to write: and I just want to see my waifus, what's your point


	4. one bird, several stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's ehhhh but at least this is the end of part 1! now we can have some fun

Time inside the tower didn’t seem to pass the same as time outside. The first floor couldn’t have taken more than two hours, but though they went in on the 20th, they came out on the 23rd. It took 3 hours or so to get to Fulda and they reached it in the early afternoon. By evening, they’d found Rohïswen’s nephew, so all in all it was a productive day.

Ren spent the evening with Rohïswen and Mirënwe in an apartment with a lot of candles. Lack of appetite seemed to be something everyone shared, as with reduced sensitivity to pain and heightened physical ability — they didn’t eat much, but talked a lot. Completely unlike his uncle, Mirënwe was chatty and personable and seemed more than happy to spend the entire night talking: about things he, a reserve player, had discovered so far, things other people were saying, and things they’d noticed about the city. Fulda wasn’t in a terrible state, he said. Society had broken down and all that, but a lot of his friends were still around and he thought that was enough to be grateful for. They were planning on staying here to gain strength and props, and eventually move up to Cologne and Berlin to collect more people. It was safer in groups anyway, he said: a lot of them were reserves and wouldn’t stand much of a chance alone this early in the game. If they wanted to survive long enough to have the experience and props to make it alone, they had to band together. Not everyone wanted this to turn into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They were just going to take things slow and use the instances.

That was another thing he told them: instances had opened up across the city, and probably across the entire world. They weren’t something you could see from the outside, but if you were caught in one, you were transported to a game. The ones he’d heard about weren’t very difficult, and it sounded as if you could back out of them: presumably they were there for training. Ren thought that sounded like a very thoughtful move on the tower’s part.

He couldn’t stay with the two of them very long. They were understanding: of course he had to go and find his sister (as he’d decided to call her, to make things easier to understand). China was a long, long way away, but there would be other people to drive him. They wished him luck, and the next morning, they parted ways.

‘ _Well, I think that was nice_.’

They were walking through the city streets, trying to find a bicycle with a basket. Ren looked down at the fox trotting along by his feet. ‘ _What, being with other people?_ ’

‘ _Being able to reconnect with the better side of humanity, perhaps. I was rather hoping you_ _’d be able to find someone nice after the end of the first floor._ ’

To avoid remembering, Ren asked, ‘ _How many floors are there, anyway?_ ’

‘ _Seven, in all. Don_ _’t ask me what happens after the seventh because I don’t know. They get harder as you go up. If I were you, I’d take a leaf out of Mirënwe’s book and try to get a little practise in before attempting the second floor. You’ve barely fought at all—_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t_ want _to fight._ ’

‘ _Well, no,_ ’ Caïn conceded. ‘ _But other people may want to fight with you, you see. I can help you with puzzles, but I_ _’m a little hopeless in combat. It’s the paws._ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t want to fight_ ,’ Ren said again, decisively. They were walking through a park, the ground covered in a thin coating of leaves left slimy from recent rain, and he looked up to stare at the blindingly grey clouds. ‘ _I just want to attack the tower so Vike knows I_ _’m fine._ ’

‘ _A wonderful ambition and I will gladly support you, but you_ _’ll have to clear the second floor for your name to be announced — the conventions change after the first floor — and to do that you need to survive. Most games aren’t based on combat ability but it does help. I think you ought to at least consider training, since you don’t even know what your ability is._ ’

That was becoming a worry. Every official player and stowaway had an ability: this was common and accepted knowledge. Ren was, without a doubt, an official player, but he had no idea what his ability was. They’d considered Divine Retribution, but since it was clearly labelled as a prop, Caïn had decided that couldn’t be it. Apparently they had no option but to wait for it to show itself.

‘ _Don_ _’t you think I could just team up with someone?_ ’ Ren asked. Part of him still wanted to go back and see if he couldn’t stay with Mirënwe and his friends for a while. He didn’t speak much German, but Mirënwe could interpret for him, and it didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world.

Caïn took a few moments to think. He flicked his ears. ‘ _I_ _’m not sure about that. There are many untrustworthy people out there. You ought to be careful._ ’

‘ _That_ _’s not what you said when you asked me to trust you._ ’

‘ _I never asked you to trust me. I asked you if you trusted me. You decided you did. And anyway, I_ _’m trustworthy._ ’

Ren thought so too. That might have been his poor sense of character talking, but he did trust Caïn. It wasn’t as if Caïn would gain anything from leading him around like this, anyway. He’d decided not to think about it. He wanted companionship.

There appeared to be a shortage of bicycles with baskets in Fulda. They couldn’t find any on the streets, Caïn was too big for the backpack, and he freely admitted he didn’t think he’d be able to hold on without scratching Ren’s thighs something horrible. It was mid-afternoon by the time Caïn finally convinced him it might be an idea to take a bicycle from a shop. This was stealing and frowned upon by every authority figure in Ren’s life up until that point, but there were signs of looting in most shops. They’d seen people actually at it too, but — not wanting to get in fights — had kept clear. Rules changed in exceptional circumstances. So Ren gave in: they headed back the way they’d come, to a shopping centre, and were just about to head inside when something in the air changed. It was like the temperature had suddenly shifted, but it wasn’t the temperature that was wrong, it was the quality of the air. He stopped, and looked down at Caïn, who had also stopped, and was looking around a corner that Ren, a little way behind, couldn’t see.

‘ _Ah._ ’

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before any answer could be given, if Caïn had intended to give any at all, everything began to shimmer, and Ren instinctively tensed up, ready to let out Divine Retribution. Instead of attackers came the tower’s voice.

“Ding dong! The single person instance game ‘Catch the Blue Bird of Happiness’ has been triggered. At 16:27 on November 24th, 2017, the player Ren Delacroix has safely entered the game.

“Sandbox loading…

“Data loading complete…”

‘ _I think we might have stepped into an instance. How exciting._ ’

Everything was black. Ren waited for it to clear up, but it didn’t. Experimentally, he put his hands out into the darkness, but couldn’t feel anything. Not quite sure he wanted to speak in an environment like this, he asked, ‘ _Do you know what_ _’s going on?_ ’

‘ _It_ _’ll likely all become clear in a minute or so. Let’s walk forwards._ ’

‘ _What did you see before? You noticed something._ ’

‘ _Oh, I just felt what you felt, probably. Come on._ ’

They walked forwards, or at least, that’s what Ren meant to do. He couldn’t actually see where he was going. After a few steps, there was a bright chirp and a flurry of wings, as if something small had just flown right by Ren’s head: he felt the disturbance in the air. Remembering what the tower had called this game, he began to run in the direction he’d felt it go: after five steps, there was a massive clang and he skidded to a stop, looking around but, still, saw nothing.

“Ding dong!”

‘ _There we go._ ’

“Let’s all be happy! Will you play this instance game?”

Ren was panicked by the tower speaking to him, and said, “Yes!” before he’d really thought about it.

“Ding dong! The main mission has been triggered. Please catch the Blue Bird of Happiness! The game grid is 9x9 squares. The player and the Blue Bird of Happiness each take up one square at any given time. The only way to leave the grid is to forfeit. The method of forfeiture in this case is for all the player’s props to be confiscated indefinitely.”

Ren’s blood went cold as he realised what he’d got himself into.

“The player may move one square per turn; the Blue Bird will move one square per turn. Squares are divided into three groups: neutral, with an appearance rate of 70%; safe, with an appearance rate of 15%; punishment, with an appearance rate of 15%. Punishment squares are non-fatal, but fatality may occur as a result of repeated exposure. Grid-wide punishments will occur irregularly, and these may be fatal. Only safe squares will protect a player from grid-wide punishments. The Blue Bird is not affected by any punishments. There is no time limit. The Blue Bird is considered caught when it is in the same square as the player. Please catch the Blue Bird of Happiness!”

“Fuck.”

‘ _This isn_ _’t very good._ ’

“I thought Mirënwe said the instances weren’t that bad!” Ren said, looking around in the hopes that something might show up, but nothing did; everything was dark. “Fatal?! You mean I could die from this?!”

There was a concerned hum from Caïn. ‘ _I think you might do well to get used to this sort of thing from the tower, but I didn_ _’t think fatal instances showed up this early. Everything’s a learning experience, I suppose. Try to stay calm: everything will be fine._ ’

Ren wasn’t entirely sure how it could be, but, dutifully, he took a deep breath and tried not to scream. In the time it took him to do this, lights began to appear. Like it had been drawn in white neon, a grid slowly buzzed into life beneath him. He was on the bottom left-most corner. He could just see his feet by the light given off by the grid, but nothing else. There was a gentle chirp, somewhere to his right.

“How am I supposed to catch it if I can’t even see it?”

‘ _That is a problem, isn_ _’t it,_ ’ Caïn said thoughtfully. He didn’t appear to be on the grid, but despite how Ren looked around, he couldn’t see him in the darkness.

‘ _I wonder if the tower implemented new difficulty grading systems_ ,’ Caïn continued in that same thoughtful tone, as if they had the time to worry about whatever that meant. ‘ _Difficulty goes up depending on the level of the player, you see, but I_ _’m not a player, so it shouldn’t be affected. Perhaps even non-player companions are taken into account now. That’s a drag. This might be a little tough._ ’

“A little?” Ren was hugging his arms, ready to unleash Divine Retribution at the slightest sound or movement. “I’m supposed to catch a bird I can’t see, and there are fatal punishments. I don’t even have any shield props. Are there shield props? Are those a thing?”

‘ _They are._ ’

“And I don’t have any! Oh god, what the hell am I going to do?”

‘ _Take your turn, I think. Give me a second to see how this plays out._ ’

Ren stepped into the square to his right with the attitude of a man who thought the ground might reach up to eat him. Nothing happened. He wailed a little in surprise when the tower announced cheerfully, “The player has moved to a neutral square!”

There was a pause.

“The Blue Bird has moved to a neutral square!”

That was it. He hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t felt anything. He had exactly no way of knowing where the bird started out, or where it had gone.

“Is this about luck?” he asked aloud. “Is this all about luck or something?”

‘ _The tower does have views on luck, but it would be very strange for the entire game to be based on it._ ’

“How am I supposed to do this?” Ren asked the unyielding darkness. “I don’t know where it is, and if it’s avoiding me—!”

‘ _It can_ _’t be,_ ’ Caïn said with complete confidence. ‘ _The tower is fair. There would be no way to win if the bird knows where you are and you don_ _’t know where it is, especially since it isn’t affected by the punishments. It can’t be avoiding you. That means its movements are likely random, unless there’s something else in the grid it’s heading towards, but we can’t assume that. If its movements are random, staying where you are is the same as moving. Try to find a safe square and stay there. Wait for it to come to you._ ’

Caïn’s voice was calm as a snowfall at night. He wasn’t flustered, wasn’t asserting his opinion onto Ren, wasn’t chiding Ren for not understanding. He was an anchor, that was all. In the sea of shadow, Ren clung onto that voice and nodded, though it wasn’t as if anyone would see.

Forcing the nerves out of his system, he took a step forwards.

“The player has moved to a neutral square!” the tower said. “The Blue Bird has moved to a punishment square!”

There was a muffled sound, like a carpet being beaten, an indignant chirp, and that was all. Ren waited to see if anything else would happen, but nothing did, and he took another step forwards. After two more neutral squares, he hit his first punishment square. The announcement did something funny to his heart: all of a sudden he felt hyper-sensitive to the slightest movement around him, like switching a video from 480 pixels to 1080 but body-wide. The dark space was silent when, seemingly come from nowhere, there was the sound of scurrying claws against the ground, and pain whipped through Ren’s ankle.

He swore: jumping to the other side of the square, he activated Divine Retribution and aimed it into the ground, but the crash only drowned out the sounds of the creature whose fur he could just see by the neon glow. It jumped, he was too slow, and it bit into his shin, digging its teeth in deep. Pain pounded in his head: his chains slammed into the creature’s body and tore it from his leg, ripping its teeth out and tearing the skin; he gasped in pain, but managed to pummel the creature into the ground. There was a sound that was more whine than squeak, and it stopped moving.

“The Blue Bird has moved to a neutral square!”

‘ _Is it over?_ ’

His breath was heavy in his mouth, but he nodded, and remembered Caïn wouldn’t see. “Yeah. It hurts a lot but I’m fine.”

‘ _It_ _’ll be better very soon. Your pain resistance will only improve._ ’

There wasn’t time to lick his wounds: in the scheme of things, this was nothing. Ren retracted Divine Retribution and walked forwards again.

“The player has moved to a safe square!”

He let out a breath. That was fine, then. He was fine. The Blue Bird took its turn, and Ren rejected his next one. The tower allowed it.

On his eighth turn, the first grid-wide punishment was deployed. The tower announced it with the same bubbly, childlike voice it always used, and Ren could only watch as the entire grid lit up in a sudden inferno. Even inside his square, he could feel the heat of it: the flames licked upwards of two metres, crackling and hissing, and they stayed there for what felt like an entire minute. When they did die down, their image was burnt into Ren’s eyes and he stared at the blackness, still seeing the shape of them. There was no way he could have survived that.

‘ _Did you see the bird at all?_ ’

He hadn’t even thought to look. “No.”

‘ _I couldn_ _’t either. Oh well._ ’

He rejected his ninth turn; the Blue Bird took it. He rejected his tenth; the Blue Bird took it. Ren was about to reject his eleventh when the tower cut him off.

“Shuffling the deck!” it said. There was a moment of blank confusion. Then it said, “The player is currently on a punishment square, but as the player did not step onto it in that state, no punishment will occur this round. The Blue Bird is currently on a neutral square.”

Ren stared. “Did it…did it just change…”

‘ _I think so. You need to find a new safe square._ ’ There was some degree of urgency to Caïn’s voice.

His next move brought him to a neutral square, as did the next. There came a punishment square that gave him nothing worse than a mild frost-burn, and then there was another neutral square. Both he and Caïn were counting down the turns, counting on the tower staying consistent. By the sixteenth turn, Ren’s body had begun to betray his fear. Maybe it affected his performance (as if this was anything more than luck): his next turn brought him to a punishment square. So did the next.

“The Blue Bird has moved to a safe square!” the tower said, and its voice seemed to echo in the emptiness. Ren’s heart was straining in his chest: he couldn’t survive anything like that fire. He knew he couldn’t survive it.

Nothing happened.

‘ _…I think…you might be free to take your turn._ ’

His nerves were in shreds. He walked to the left.

“The player has moved to a neutral square! The Blue Bird has moved to a neutral square!”

The grid-wide punishments weren’t regular, then. That was something: it was less predictable, but at least now—

“Initiating grid-wide punishment!”

Everything slowed to a shuddering stop. Ren felt his heart stutter, because for a moment, as the tower’s words faded, there was absolutely nothing inside him. Then there came a rumble.

‘ _Ren, forfeit! Say you forfeit!_ ’

He couldn’t respond to the horror in Caïn’s voice. There wasn’t time: time enough to say the words, perhaps, but not enough to come to terms with losing his props. It was stupid: all that waiting around and taking turns, and he hadn’t been able to force himself to accept the idea. He couldn’t have said why. Maybe it was the vulnerability of having lost almost everyone and everything in his life. He didn’t want these to be taken from him, too.

It was stupid, childish sentimentality.

There was barely any time for the pain to register, in the end. There was a shriek of metal and pressure, overwhelming pressure — his body was moved, and split, and something was screaming, and then it was all over.

 

 

The game hadn’t ended. Caïn waited for it to, but it never came. He couldn’t understand that. It was impossible for him to register as a player in the tower’s database, but the game could not continue without a player. He hated the uncertainty. It was making him hope, when there was nothing to hope for. Humans — especially humans who hadn’t even attempted the second floor — could not survive being sliced to pieces. His pulse fluttered inside his ribcage, and he watched the darkness.

 

 

When Ren came to, he didn’t understand what had happened. He sat up and gently patted his body. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was blood on the ground; he jumped up in disgust and slipped in it a bit. Everything was still dark.

“Caïn?” he asked, looking around him. “What happened?”

‘ _…Ren?_ ’

“Yes?”

There was a long pause. ‘ _Can you tell me exactly what you remember of the last few minutes, please? I heard you die, and I_ _’m having trouble understanding this._ ’

As if Ren understood it any better. With the sense that he was detached from himself, he said what he remembered: that his mind had gone blank when the tower had announced the punishment, and he hadn’t felt all there. In the hollowness, there had been something like an instinct, like the urge to sneeze, and just as he had tried to answer it, everything had…happened.

Caïn processed this. ‘ _Well,_ ’ he said. ‘ _You said you only have the three props?_ ’

“Yeah.”

‘ _Then we might have worked out what your ability is._ ’

Ren wasn’t sure what to say to that. He laughed nervously. “My ability is to…revive?”

‘ _Probably. I don_ _’t see how else you could have survived that. Since you’re in one piece right now, I’d say your ability is to revive and heal any injuries from before your death, and that instinct you felt was probably the activation. I wouldn’t count on being told how to do it a second time, if I were you. I think you’ll probably have to make sure to activate it before death each time. Which leaves the question of how many times you’re actually allowed…that’s a worrying one. I’ve heard of abilities that are one-time only, but those are very, very rare. You’re more likely to have only a set number of uses within a certain time frame. I think…let’s try to finish this game without dying again._ ’

“Okay,” Ren said. He still didn’t feel all himself. Nothing felt quite real. “I’ll try.”

It was a nice thought, and ultimately pointless. Just before his thirty-second move, the tower announced another grid-wide punishment directly after shuffling the squares. There was nothing to do but activate his ability and brace himself, but this punishment was not so quick. Suffocating took longer than Ren would have thought. He hated every second of it.

When it eventually came, victory didn’t feel like victory. The Blue Bird wandered into his square on its forty-third turn, and the tower joyfully said, “Ding dong! The game ‘Catch the Blue Bird of Happiness!’ has been completed.

“Calculating game rewards…

“The player Ren Delacroix has won the game and obtained the reward ‘Happy Blue Feather’.”

The world returned at its own pace. Ren blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to vision again; when they did, he was at the door to the shopping centre in Fulda, just as he’d been when he’d gone into the instance. In his hands was a blue feather.

 

[Prop: Happy Blue Feather]

[User: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Level: 1]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: When consumed, it raises the player’s luck levels temporarily.]

[Restrictions: One-time use. Lasts for an indefinite period of time ranging from 1 to 3 hours.]

[Remarks: The Blue Bird will bring you happiness but the true obstacle to happiness is the self.]

 

Ren looked at it, and put it into his backpack. Caïn was at his feet, and climbed onto his hind legs, putting his paws on Ren’s shin to better look up at him.

‘ _Are you alright?_ ’

He hadn’t expected to be asked. After the stress of dying twice and that entire horrible instance, he felt he could have cried, but didn’t: instead, he crouched down to stroke Caïn’s head. He didn’t know if that was rude or patronising, but Caïn didn’t ask him to stop, so he kept doing it, grounding himself with the soft fur and delicate bones beneath his hand.

‘ _I_ _’m fine,_ ’ he said. ‘ _This is just the start, right? It_ _’ll get easier._ ’

Caïn rubbed his cheek against Ren’s palm and nodded. ‘ _It will. Shall we go? Oh, not that way. Only bodies that way,_ ’ he said, gently ushering Ren away from the shopping centre. ‘ _Best you don_ _’t look at them._ ’

They began to walk back the way they’d come, along streets painted with long shadows. It was difficult to tell how long they’d been in the instance for, whether it was measurable by hours or days, and the tower hadn’t said. As long as no one had touched the second floor yet, Ren didn’t mind.

_‘Are you still set on taking a bicycle?_ ’ Caïn asked once they were far enough away from the shopping centre that it no longer loomed over them. ‘ _I think a car might be quicker._ ’

‘ _I can_ _’t drive._ ’

‘ _It can_ _’t be that difficult. What’s there to hit?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’m not stealing a car, Caïn._ ’

This decision was met with acceptance. Without street lamps, it was too late to set out in the rough direction of ‘east’: trying not to draw too much attention to themselves, they went to find somewhere to rest for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author's fun chatting corner!
> 
> hosgard: I don’t like seeing my wife upset…..  
> me: did I hallucinate or was he not the one who died multiple times in this chapter  
> hosgard: I still don’t like it. but you’re right: his presence should increase difficulty. my wife is amazing  
> me: I also think so but can we stop with the my wife thing it’s getting old  
> hosgard: true it's not great  
> mirënwe: hey out of interest was that my only—  
> me: jesus christ  
> hosgard: who the Fuck are you
> 
> author’s fun chatting corner gained a new party member!


	5. [that vine where they're singing the 'so seductive.........i'll take you to the candy shop' song to the dog]

Ren missed music. He wouldn’t have expected that to leap above all the other things that were gone now, but it did. With all the getting lost, it had taken almost ten hours to cycle from Fulda to Coburg, the next biggest city he could see reliably signposted, and almost all of it had been in silence. Very, very occasionally, a car had driven by, but they had never stopped. There were no birds, or even insects. Caïn mostly slept curled up in the basket, and that meant there was nothing to hide behind, not even tower announcements.

At least no one had taken the second floor yet. At least there was that.

Caïn said no one was likely to for a while. Floors weren’t things people attacked habitually: they were a weighty undertaking and should be regarded with some level of apprehension. People often didn’t survive them. Even with the ability to revive probably-at-least-twice-a-day, Ren might not survive the second floor if he wasn’t used to what the tower could throw at him. It was important to be prepared, and to have more props. More companions too, Ren thought, but didn’t say.

They arrived in Coburg on the evening of the 26th, or at least what was probably the 26th, as long as the Blue Bird instance had happened in one day. To Ren’s disappointment, there was no giant black tower looming over the city, but they couldn’t very well go further that day just to find one. They steered well clear of what few people were out at night (at one point Ren had to pick Caïn up and run from a particularly hostile-looking group) and eventually made it to an uninhabited house. It was still full of the remnants of the people who had lived there, and Ren tried not to look at them: he lit no candles, and eventually just moved a sofa to the corner of the dusty living room and lay down on it, watching the moon through the window. He didn’t feel very hungry: he hadn’t, not since the earth had gone online. He still ate a little, out of habit, and tried to drink, but it was like there was something stuck in his throat. He didn’t feel tired, either.

‘ _That_ _’s natural: I wouldn’t worry about it. Normal humans couldn’t live in a world like this. You’ll find yourself toughening up._ ’

“I guess that’s a good thing,” Ren said, testing how his voice sounded in the silence. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like not liking it: it was as if something had been silencing him for days, and where he once would have chatted away happily or nervously, he now stayed quiet, unwilling to disturb the blanket of sobriety that had been laid out over the world. Talking was futile, a shout into unforgiving night, if there was no one to talk with. There was nothing wrong with Caïn, but he was removed: there was something inherently comforting about his presence, but the same something kept him distant.

Ren thought he might be lonely. He reached down to stroke Caïn’s fur idly, and wasn’t asked to stop.

‘ _Let_ _’s go over the props you have again,_ ’ Caïn suggested after a while.

‘ _Have you already forgotten?_ ’

‘ _This is for your sake. You ought to keep them in mind, always, or you won_ _’t remember to use them when you need to._ ’ He hopped up onto the sofa to lie on Ren’s stomach, and allowed the stroking to continue. ‘ _List them for me._ ’

‘ _Spider_ _’s silk—_ ’

‘ _How might you use that?_ ’

Oh, so that’s what they were doing. ‘ _Catch things, I guess. If I_ _’d actually been able to see the bird last time, I could have used it._ ’

‘ _Let_ _’s think a little wider. You could also use it to hook over something and pull yourself up._ ’

Like this, they went over the other props Ren had, but he did only have four.

‘ _I really do think you need more,_ ’ Caïn said pensively. ‘ _Divine Retribution is very good and we should all be grateful that the moon god decided to give it to you, but the spider_ _’s silk is the only other useful one there. The feather might come in handy at some point — luck always does — but you’ll need to decide carefully when to use it. The jar of spirits is…well, it’s not useful. Do you think I could persuade you to try another instance before going for the second floor?_ ’

‘ _I really don_ _’t want to waste time._ ’

‘ _I completely understand, but it just isn_ _’t very wise, that’s all. I don’t know for sure that my presence will put you at a disadvantage by raising the difficulty, but if it does, more props and experience will be vital. Or the second floor might turn out to be easy. It’s all up to chance in the end. I just want to see you well-prepared._ ’

Ren made a sound of unwillingness and considered turning over, but of course he couldn’t with a fox on his stomach. ‘ _I_ _’m scared,_ ’ he said.

‘ _Scared of what?_ ’

‘ _Of not getting to the second floor first, and having to try the third floor just so she knows I_ _’m alive. I’m scared I won’t make it to her. I’m scared to even really think about any of it, in case I jinx something. And I sort of don’t want to do more games than I have to, because it’s not…I mean, it’s not like I’ve got a good track record so far._ ’

Caïn took this in and hummed thoughtfully. ‘ _You aren_ _’t wrong to feel that way. It’s a very rational reaction, but I think it might be better to try and rise above that fear and impatience in order to think calmly about this. I think you should try at least one more instance before the second floor, just to get a better feel for everything. If someone else gets there before you, we will do the third floor immediately afterwards and hope for the best, and I’ll guide you to the best of my ability. Does that sound alright?_ ’

Ren stared up at the slither of moon visible through the window, and nodded. ‘ _Okay._ ’

 

 

It took almost the entire next day to find an instance. Obviously they couldn’t ask anyone: far from seeing anyone friendly, they ran into the same hostile group as the day before and had to run again. It was brighter this time, and Ren couldn’t shake them off as easily: he had to use Divine Retribution just to get them to leave him alone, and it shook him up. He couldn’t quite calm down for the rest of the afternoon, always paranoid someone was going to show up behind him. In this way, they found their way into a large park signposted as Hofgarten, and it was some way into this that the air began to shimmer.

‘ _Finally._ ’

Ren was relieved too. Rather than fight it, he stood quite still and waited for the scenery to change.

“Ding dong! The instance game ‘Grandmother’s Treasure’ has been triggered. At 15:58 on November 27th, 2017, the player Ren Delacroix has safely entered the game.

“Sandbox loading…

“Data loading complete…

“Welcome to the Dead Forest! Please find Grandma.”

It was a fitting name. The forest that had appeared before Ren’s eyes was bare: it was rolling hills covered in a layer of ash, trees sticking out of it like needles punctured through skin. They were charred, but seemed to have grown that way: there was something about them that didn’t look burnt. They curved and contorted unnaturally, smooth as bleached bone, but grew close together — it was only by grace of this that the forest was more than a wasteland, since there were no leaves. It was difficult to see more than ten metres around. Ren was grateful it was apparently still daytime, because he wasn’t sure how safe he’d feel here at night.

Caïn took a few tentative steps in the ash, looked down at his paws as if to check for any abnormalities, and — upon finding none — said, ‘ _Shall we go and find Grandma, then?_ ’

Ren followed him through the knotted trees. ‘ _When you say Grandma_ _…_ ’

‘ _This game_ _’s monster, or boss. Given that we’re in a forest, we’re probably expecting a fairy-tale grandmother._ ’

‘ _Like the one in Little Red Riding Hood?_ ’

‘ _Very possibly. I do hope not, though: there are a few Wolf Grandmothers and they_ _’re all absolutely terrible._ ’

With that comforting thought in mind, they made their way through the forest. Within ten minutes, the smell of sugar made itself known. It was jarring, like walking into a sweet shop with the background of a graveyard, and it was so noticeable that Ren wasn’t even particularly surprised when they made their way into a giant clearing crowned by a house made entirely out of sweets. There was something grotesque about the brightly-coloured candy canes and lollipops and liquorice and toffee sitting comfortably among trees that looked as if they’d been burnt.

The two of them walked up to the cottage and stood at the door. There was a little vegetable patch at the front that seemed to consist entirely of gummy carrots planted forcefully into the ash. Ren didn’t really want to knock; in the end, he didn’t have to. There was a sound from inside, followed by several more boisterous noises, and then the door was flung open.

“Hansel!”

An enormous figure launched itself from the door at Ren. He activated Divine Retribution, adrenaline pounding in his ears, but before he could use it, he realised this person was hugging, not attacking, him.

Still on edge, he waited until they were finished. When they pulled back, he almost used Divine Retribution after all: the person still holding his shoulders was, to all extents and purpose, a normal-looking old woman, but there was something wrong with her eyes. He couldn’t look at them: just trying made his gaze instinctively slide away to her harmless smile and wrinkles and permed hair. She straightened up, and turned out to be at least two and a half metres tall, with a girth to match. It was as if she’d been scaled up. Her hands dwarfed him.

“Oh, my Hansel!” she said happily, leading him inside the house. He did not want to go, but though he dug his heels into the ground, this only succeeded in leaving long gouges into the ash and earth. “I’ve waited so long for you! Your mother doesn’t send you to me often enough. Ungenerous girl just wants you all to herself, doesn’t she?” She pressed a kiss to his face and it covered his entire cheek. She smelled like sugar.

“Now, where’s your sister?” she asked, finally getting him inside the house. She looked around a little, but there was no one else in the clearing, excepting Caïn, who was placidly trotting inside the house after them. The old woman’s face soured. “Isn’t she here yet? Lazy little thing. But we won’t mind, will we, Hansel?

She seemed to actually be waiting for an answer this time. Ren floundered as he looked up into her smile, and said, “…um…no?”

This was the right answer. She chuckled and led him to a sticky-looking armchair which he was forced to sit down on. Caïn picked his way across the floor to join him. The old woman (presumably ‘Grandma’) did not sit down. She chose instead to loom.

“I’ve got a good idea,” she said with a grandmotherly smile. “Let’s make a little treat together, before your lazy sister gets here. How does that sound?”

“It…it sounds good, thank you.”

“Call me Grandma.”

“It sounds good, Grandma.”

She beamed. Leaning over to pinch his cheek with force that made his eyes water, she said, “Now, I know little boys, and you can’t be without your sugar, can you? But Grandma doesn’t have any sugar in the house!”

‘ _I feel like that might just be factually incorrect. She could at least scrape some off that gummy worm over there._ ’

“So what I want you to do is go and collect some nectar for your old Grandma. Can you do that for me, Hansel?”

Ren’s knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but he caught himself and said instead, “Where do I get nectar? Um, Grandma?”

There was something concerning about her smile. Every light in the house glinted off her wide teeth like sunlight hitting the blade of a guillotine. “Don’t be silly, my boy!” she said with evident mirth. “Everyone knows how to get nectar. If my silly little grandson has forgotten, he can just ask the crows. Now do go and get it for me, and be back before Cupid’s game-show finishes!”

Her eyes opened just enough to send a shiver down his spine. “Don’t be late,” she said, and then shoved him out of the house, handing him a glass jar at the last second.

The second the door was closed, there came the muffled sound of something like a game-show’s jingle from inside. Ren looked down at Caïn, who seemed to be focused on this jingle, but he shook himself out of it.

‘ _Well, we_ _’d better get going, then._ ’

As they left the clearing, the tower spoke up.

“Ding dong! Triggered the branch mission ‘Find nectar for Grandma’. Please fill the jar with nectar and return to Grandma within forty minutes. If something goes awry in Cupid’s game-show, this time limit may be inaccurate.”

“Is that likely…?” Ren wondered aloud.

‘ _Unfortunately so. Cupid isn_ _’t good at keeping shows going. We probably ought to hurry: let’s go and find the crows._ ’

This on its own took ten minutes. Eventually the crows were located by their cawing, and were discovered to be perching on a branch overhanging a pitch black river that had forcibly carved its way through the forest. There were three of them, fat and fluffy with bright yellow beaks and eyes that watched Ren and Caïn approach. There was a small croak of laughter from one of the crows as Ren came to stand underneath it.

“Um,” Ren said, trying to look polite. “Do any of you happen to know what nectar is?”

“Know it?”

“Of course we know it.”

“Everyone knows it.”

“I don’t know it,” Ren explained. “Could you tell me?”

“No fun if we tell you.”

“No fun at all!”

“Best not to say,” the third crow said in a satisfied voice, nodding.

Ren bit his lip, watching them. He was about to try asking again when Caïn said, ‘ _Just threaten them, please. Let_ _’s not waste time._ ’

If it was just threatening, Ren wasn’t morally against it: he said quietly, “In the name of the moon, I punish you,” and when the crows looked down to see what he was muttering about, he had Divine Retribution shoot up and circle the three of them, hovering in a ring in the air. The crows eyed this cautiously.

“Tell me, please,” Ren said.

The crows appeared to deliberate together in low voices. Then the first one said, “We will give you clues.”

“This is fair,” the second one said.

“It is fair so you should be fair too and not disturb us,” the third one clarified.

Ren nodded. “I don’t mind. What are the clues?”

“One! Nectar is refined into sugar.”

“Two! Children love nectar and love to get to it: it is a game.”

“Three! Humans also have nectar but it is a different type of nectar and you can’t use it in sweets, but maybe Grandma will use yours if you aren’t quick.”

They cackled together at this, but Ren had already thanked them and turned away, heading back into the trees. ‘ _Do you have any ideas?_ ’

‘ _A few. Do you?_ ’

Ren shot a look at him. ‘ _You_ _’re not going to tell me?_ ’

‘ _Oh, I will, but since there_ _’s no terrible time restriction right now, as far as we’re aware, I think it might be better if you try and think this one through for yourself. Remember that it likely isn’t real nectar, just like you aren’t really Hansel._ ’

Ren stood still, and thought about it. It was something that was fun to get to, so it probably wasn’t immediately obvious to the naked eye. It was like a kind of nectar humans had, which was almost certainly blood. It could be refined into sugar, which didn’t help anyone.

‘ _No, that does help. The idea is that this nectar can be transformed into something else. If I_ _’m right, human nectar can also be refined into something else. Or can be considered an unrefined version of something else._ ’

‘ _…it’s…I mean, it’s something to do with blood, right? Not like…a different, uh, fluid._ ’

‘ _Definitely blood. Let_ _’s not consider other things_ ,’ Caïn suggested cheerfully. ‘ _Maybe it_ _’s not quite refining. What’s something connected to blood?_ ’

‘ _The heart. Oxygen. Iron. Bone marrow?_ ’

‘ _There we go._ ’

‘ _I_ _’m supposed to steal someone’s bone marrow?_ ’

‘ _If you want to, you can,_ ’ Caïn said magnanimously, ‘ _but I think rather that you_ _’re looking for something like bone marrow in our immediate vicinity._ ’

Ren looked around. “Oh,” he said, and shot Divine Retribution at one of the trees. It promptly exploded, revealing a thick, roe-like substance within the trunk that gave off a sickeningly sweet smell. Ren began to scoop it out and into the jar.

‘ _It_ _’s a kind of mind-map_ ,’ Caïn explained while he did that. ‘ _You think about all the different possible things it could be, not just what you_ _’re expecting it to be. And every clue is useful, always._ ’

‘ _Am I going to have to do something like that again?_ ’

‘ _I have no idea!_ ’ Caïn said happily. ‘ _But if you do, you_ _’ll know how to go about it_.’

Once the jar was full of nectar, Ren’s hand was terribly sticky, but he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to lick it off. He held it in the air awkwardly, walked back to the house with Caïn, and got into the clearing just in time to see the door slam open and Grandma burst from the house like a beast on the scent of blood. He froze; she drew up short just in front of him, and her entire manner changed. Drawing her long claws back inside her heavy fur coat, she smiled in a friendly way, as if to erase the madness he had seen on her face a second prior.

“Hansel!” she said happily. “What good timing you have, my dear boy! My show just ended. And you have the nectar! What a _good_ boy you are,” she crooned, taking the jar from him. She paused, and he realised she must have noticed his hand. She took hold of it: before he could do anything, a rough, inhuman tongue was licking the nectar off his skin.

When she was finished, she straightened up and licked her lips. Ren didn’t move.

“What a good boy,” she repeated. “Positively wasted on your mother. I could just eat you up.”

And on that note she went inside.

“Ding dong!” the tower sang. “Branch mission ‘Find nectar for Grandma’ has been completed. Triggered branch mission ‘Help Grandma cook’.”

 

 

Cooking wasn’t so much a puzzle as it was an ordeal. Caïn sat on the chair and watched while Ren helped Grandma in the kitchen. She was making a profiterole tower and it was horribly messy, but Ren managed to stay clear of the worst of it, out of fear that she’d lick him again. Once it was finally all put together and the kitchen absolutely covered in waste caramel, Grandma took the plate and told Ren to follow her: together, they went out into a back room, and then further out, to the very back of the house, where there was something like a gazebo that just brushed the edge of the trees. There was a stone podium in the middle of it, and Grandma put the plate of profiteroles onto it like a trophy.

“This is a very special treat I’ve made with my dear grandson,” she said, and pinched his cheek again. “I know you can’t wait to just gobble it up right now, but you have to wait for your lazy sister. I know I can trust my good little Hansel, so will you watch it for me? Grandma needs her sleep, you see, and you young boys are so energetic. A disgrace like your sister doesn’t even deserve to taste Grandma’s cooking,” she said vengefully, “but she is my granddaughter too, and Grandma is very loving. So just you keep an eye on this, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

She pinched his cheek again until he thought she was about to rip the skin, and turned to leave. Once she’d gone back inside, the sunlight began to fade.

“Ding dong! Main mission has been triggered: ‘Protect Grandma’s Treasure!’ One night in the game lasts two hours. If Grandma’s Treasure is intact by the end of three nights, the player has won. Please stay vigilant!”

‘ _One night lasts two hours?_ ’

‘ _Do you want to guard it for longer?_ ’

It was a fair point, and Ren let it go. He sat down in front of the podium and got Divine Retribution out, just in case. The chains lay before him limply, as they well should.

‘ _Is there anything I should be expecting to happen?_ ’

‘ _An attack, probably._ ’ Caïn had settled down to sleep.

With that helpful input, Ren stared out at the forest and watched night come to the forest. It wasn’t totally dark, even once the sun had set. There were small things like fireflies floating around: he thought they might be like the spores from the first floor, but there were too few of them to really tell. He watched their movements, willing time to pass quickly. He wasn’t great at keeping himself occupied.

Twenty minutes passed and nothing had happened. The only light, apart from the fireflies, came from behind him, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as the Blue Bird instance had been. It wasn’t particularly cold. It was relaxing, with Grandma gone. It was creepy, but that was a given. Every so often, he looked behind him to check that the profiteroles were still there, and they always were. He leaned against the podium and tried to come up with something to think about. Vaguely, he wished this were the second floor so he could just have it over and done with; wasting time like this really didn’t sit well with him. He just wanted to see Vike again — family, someone he knew, someone he could trust and team up with. Was she okay? She had to be. She was strong and athletic and clever, and had attacked the first floor before anyone else. She’d be fine, and he just had to hope that her girlfriend was too, because Einierre might be clever but she was missing the strength and athleticism. Hopefully the reason she hadn’t joined in attacking the first floor was caution, worry that she wasn’t strong enough for it. Hopefully she was still around. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she was gone too.

But he couldn’t get bogged down into thinking like that. Nothing would be certain until he managed to meet up with them, and that was a long, long way ahead, and to get anywhere he had to pass this game. He hoped it wouldn’t involve being licked anymore. He _really_ hoped that if he did die, it wouldn’t involve being eaten alive. Reviving was all well and good but dying itself wasn’t pleasant, and even among unpleasant methods of death, being eaten alive sounded awful. But wasn’t that what Hansel and Gretel was all about? Getting cooked and eaten? He was pretty sure it was that. It was weird: fairy-tales were one of those things you just sort of assumed you knew, but now he was thinking back to it, he wasn’t sure he remembered the details very well. But anyway, he—

He bolted upright. There had been an explosion, somewhere far to his left. It had sounded like a very small one, but explosions were explosions, and he got to his feet tensely, lifting Divine Retribution into the air with him. Should he go and check it out? A glance down at Caïn showed he had woken up and was facing the explosion too. There was a very, very faint glimmer of light, as if something was burning.

‘ _I shouldn_ _’t go and check it out, should I?_ ’

‘ _Strong no to that. Stay here._ ’

He did: he stayed in place, watching for any sign of movement coming from the forest, but even his heightened instincts weren’t quick enough to alert him in time when something was thrown from chillingly close by, hitting the podium and exploding upon impact. Ren just had the time to jump back and shield his face from the blast: when he looked up, there was the remains of a fire burning out in front of his eyes.

Letting his shrapnel-scratched arms drop, he looked down at it. The profiterole tower could not, in any world, have been called intact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: welcome to author’s fun chatting time with your 3 MCs!  
> mirënwe: it's author's fun chatting time but there's no author…  
> jiirva, taking a swig of chianti: they learnt humility  
> hosgard: what are you even doing here  
> jiirva: I'm kicking back with a glass of chianti, watching the humans running around like ants who’ve had water poured onto their hill [copyright: shay]  
> hosgard: you’ve broken three glasses since you got here  
> jiirva: maybe if that woman would stop licking my favourite then I wouldn’t have to break glasses. personally I think breaking glasses is better than destroying worlds anyway  
> hosgard: that was one time, and I'm just the MC now!!!!  
> (mirënwe is feeling out of place)  
> (jiirva notices and offers him a glass of chianti)  
> (mirënwe refuses politely and hopes someone he knows will appear soon)


	6. oops I did it [met an untimely and unnatural end] again

In a state of mild panic, Ren waited out the rest of the two hours. Caïn told him to calm down at least five times but was ignored all five, because no matter how often Caïn pointed out that the tower hadn’t announced the end of the game yet, Ren couldn’t help but wonder if the tower wasn’t just taking his ability into the equation and planning on letting Grandma eat him first anyway.

But she didn’t eat him. When she came out in the ‘morning’ to see how things had gone, she looked down at the podium, at the charred remains of patisserie, at a terrified Ren, and smiled.

“Well now!” she said in a voice like honey. “Wasn’t that unfortunate? But you’re hurt, my poor Hansel! Let’s get you patched up and then we’ll bake a new one together. Won’t you like that? Of course you will. My good boy.”

‘ _I told you something seemed off_ ,’ Caïn said without a hint of ‘I told you so’ in his tone, somehow. As Grandma pulled Ren into the sitting room and began to treat his wounds with something that felt exactly like lemon juice, he explained: ‘ _I think you just have to make sure it_ _’s safe on the third night. It sounds stupid when I put it like that, but consider it like having three lives. The first two nights are practise runs, perhaps. After all, it’s harder to keep something safe than it is to destroy it in one blow. Let’s just focus on working out what exactly the attacker is, tonight._ ’

Ren agreed with this plan whole-heartedly, but couldn’t focus enough to say so, because Grandma was still rubbing a paste into his cuts and it stung so badly he thought he’d have cried out if he’d had his old pain threshold.

The rest of the ‘day’ was spent the same as the first. Ren had to go and collect two jars of nectar; he wiped it down pretty thoroughly afterwards but nevertheless his hand was, regrettably, licked; he stayed in a safe part of the kitchen while Grandma cooked, occasionally handing her a utensil. At the end of all of this, a profiterole tower almost identical to the last one was created, and Grandma ruffled his hair with her sugar-sticky hand, beaming at him.

“Let’s hope this one survives longer than the last!” she said, setting it down on the podium in the weak afternoon light. “Wouldn’t want to deprive my sweet boy of his treats, would we?”

“No, Grandma.”

She pinched his cheek, painfully, as was her custom, then looked around the clearing in a critical way. “Where _has_ that lazy sister of yours got to? If she takes much longer I’ll close my doors on her, I tell you I will. Good girls shouldn’t wander about woods like these alone.”

“Wh-why not, Grandma?” Ren asked hurriedly before she had a chance to go back inside. “Is there something wrong with these woods?”

“Wrong with them?” She blinked down at him and he couldn’t meet her eyes: he had to look away, to the tangle of trees encircling the house. “They’re so dreary, don’t you think, dear?”

“But are there any…you know, monsters?”

“Apart from me?”

Ren wasn’t sure how to respond to that: she’d said it so calmly he almost couldn’t believe it, until Caïn gently reminded him that ‘monster’ was a species in the tower world. “Yes,” he said, looking down at the profiterole tower. “Apart from you.”

“Not as far as I know. We’re quite set-back from everything, and I wouldn’t let another monster into my territory!” She laughed. “Not even my good friend Wolf Grandmother: all these decades and we still only talk by letter. That’s friendship, Hansel. Total separation. Have a good night now,” she said warmly. “Do try not to have another accident, won’t you? Grandma doesn’t like her cooking to go to waste.”

She smiled, showing teeth, and left. The sun began to set.

‘ _I_ _’ve been thinking_ ,’ Ren told Caïn, moving over to the podium. ‘ _The tower never said we had to stay here, and Grandma didn_ _’t either._ ’

‘ _You_ _’re right._ ’ Caïn sounded pleased. ‘ _I think moving would be an excellent idea. A gazebo is a bit too much of a target for me to sleep peacefully_.’

‘ _Because that_ _’s the most important part here._ ’

‘ _Naturally it is._ ’

The profiterole tower wasn’t light, but Ren’s strength had been improving lately like the rest of his physical abilities, and the main problem was that it was cumbersome. Eventually he had to give into its desire to lean over and stick to his front, because that was safer than letting it droop over the other way. Steadily, he and Caïn made their way into the forest. There was no light, which was no help to anyone, but Ren’s night vision had also been improving, and anyway, Grandma had said there was nothing in this forest. Caïn led the way and let him know if there were any pronounced roots ahead that he’d have to watch out for: all in all it felt a bit like carrying a wedding cake but with higher stakes.

Once they were a good distance into the forest, Ren put the plate down at his feet, trying not to worry about the ash, and got Divine Retribution out. Caïn settled down for a nap.

It took longer, this time. The first hour passed without incident; perhaps seventy minutes in, Ren’s crushing boredom was disturbed by something, like the brush of fabric against a branch. It wasn’t the flap of a crow’s wing, or anything else he could imagine happening in this forest. Moving closer to the profiterole tower (but not close enough to knock it over), he lifted Divine Retribution and listened carefully over the sound of his own pulse in his ear. Nothing else came.

‘ _Ca_ _ïn._ ’

There was movement by his right leg in an instant. ‘ _Did you hear something?_ ’

‘ _Something really small, but yeah. Can you see anything?_ ’

‘ _My vision_ _’s good but not that good. It’s mostly gloom._ ’

It was less than gloom for Ren. Whatever was after them either had excellent, inhuman night vision, or was using some other sense to track them. He didn’t really want to think about that possibility: he comforted himself with the thought that whatever it was probably didn’t want to hurt him, just the patisserie.

He stood quite still, and, after a minute or so, heard something begin to move. It wasn’t easy to pinpoint where, but it was coming towards him, slowly. Carefully? It knew he was on high alert, that much was obvious. Slowly, slowly, it came closer, and when he thought it was about five metres away, he shot a chain at it, smashing through trees to wrap around whatever it was, tighten, and—

And then there was an unholy clash of metal that rang in Ren’s ears, too used to silence. He yelped and pulled the chain tighter, but before he realised what was happening, it was levered off the assailant, and then something came rushing at him. He barely had the time to think: he retracted the chains, mentally yelled at Caïn to get back, and shot them forwards, only to have them clash against metal again; sparks shone in the darkness. A shadow was closing in on him and he saw it move by the millisecond, its movements too fast and his too slow: he stepped in front of where he thought the plate was, trying to protect it, and brought his chains into an X in front of him, holding them as firmly as he could. The assailant crashed into them, but lost no time: before Ren could work out his next move, there was a heavy impact to his stomach and he stepped back, pain like electricity crackling through his abdomen and taking hold. In his hesitation, he heard an unmistakably crunchy-wet sound, like a tower of caramel-covered, cream-filled pastry being crushed. In the next second, the assailant disappeared back into the forest.

Ren stood there, trying to catch his breath. He retracted Divine Retribution and put a wary hand to his stomach; he felt blood, and it was only thanks to that that he knew he’d been stabbed. Adrenaline had numbed everything.

Everything, that was, except the sting of frustration. Kicking the ground, he yelled, “I _hate_ this!”

 

 

Grandma used the ‘healing’ paste spitefully. Seeing him empty-handed on the morning of the second ‘day’, she had smiled and ushered him inside and sympathised, but there was an edge to her words, and as she’d sat him down to treat his stab wound, she had said, “This can’t keep happening, Hansel. Grandma loves you very much, you know that, but Grandma doesn’t like it when her cooking goes to waste like this. It’s like you don’t care at all. But of course you _do_ , my sweet boy,” she said, rubbing the paste in; it mixed with the blood and burned so badly he could have sworn it was actively polluting the cut.

His scratches from the previous ‘day’ had healed, though. He just had to hope this would too.

That day, he had to collect three jars of nectar. This was not significantly more difficult than collecting one or two: the problem came when, halfway through his third jar, he heard a roar echo through the forest. The crows, who had been watching him up until that point, all cawed and took off: he froze until Caïn urged him to hurry up, so it was only thanks to Caïn, in the end, that he met an enraged Grandma with three full jars balanced in his arms.

Trees lay broken, snapped like twigs in her path. Her breath was a growl through unnaturally sharp teeth. The bulk of her imposing body rose and fall like the warning signs of an earthquake. Beady, unbearable eyes looked down at him and the three jars of nectar, and she lowered her arms, smiling.

“Good boy,” she said, putting a hand on his back to lead him back to the cottage. It covered his entire torso. “Grandma was wondering where you’d got to. Grandma doesn’t like the idea of her little Hansel leaving her. Didn’t I tell you to be back before my show ended? It’s not safe to stay out late, dear boy.”

Ren felt shaken, but nodded, and called her ‘Grandma’ to make her happy. They made profiteroles together and she chatted to him about how the contestants had died on Cupid’s game-show today, laughing all the while. Caïn didn’t even pretend to nap this time; he watched the kitchen, deep black eyes unblinking.

“Well!” Grandma said once the profiterole tower was finished and set upon its podium. “I think that’s the best one we’ve made so far, don’t you? Very smart. What a talented grandson I have.” Then came the cheek-pinching, and Ren suffered. “Grandma has to catch her beauty sleep now, but you’ll watch it for me, won’t you? Your lazy sister hasn’t shown up yet so perhaps we shall just have to eat it all ourselves!” She laughed. “Wouldn’t you like that? My good Hansel will look after it for me, won’t you?”

She was looking for an answer. Ren nodded after a second’s hesitation. “Yes, Grandma.”

“Just make sure you do.”

Ren watched the door warily as it shut behind her. ‘ _I am_ really _glad this is going to be over soon._ ’

‘ _Let_ _’s focus on making it end the way we want. I think moving into the forest was a good idea, but we need to consider what the attacker actually is. There are a few things I’ve noticed that don’t make sense._ ’

Dutifully, Ren picked up the profiterole tower, allowed it to lean on him stickily since he was already very sticky and his clothes were a lost cause, and thought about it. ‘ _It doesn_ _’t feel very fair,_ ’ he said. ‘ _The attacker only has to destroy it, and on top of that I think it knows where we are._ ’

‘ _A good point._ ’ They walked into the forest and began to navigate it mostly by touch. ‘ _The tracking isn_ _’t very fair. If it can find you no matter what — and it does seem like that might be the case — then you’re at an automatic disadvantage. There has to be a way for you to win, but everything seems stacked against you, in that you can only win if you’re a better fighter than it, but fighting necessarily puts the profiteroles in danger, poor things. It’s all unfair, so we’re probably missing something. Did you notice how it didn’t use explosions last night?_ ’

Ren paused in stepping over a knot of tree roots. Carefully, he crossed them, and said, ‘ _I guess it didn_ _’t. Does that mean something?_ ’

‘ _Maybe. If it can create explosions, why not do so? It would have been easier than attacking you. Either the attacker really didn_ _’t want to hurt you, which seems bizarrely nice of it, or it just couldn’t explode anything at that time._ ’

‘ _Like it had run out of bombs?_ ’

‘ _I think so. I might be wrong, but I think those were props._ ’

‘ _Do monsters have props?_ ’

‘ _They_ _’d be weapons for monsters and underground people, but to answer what you’re actually asking, no, I don’t think it’s a monster. It’s possible they’re another player._ ’

Ren took a moment to let than sink in. Of course he’d known multiple players could play the same game, that’s what the entire first floor had been about, but this scenario was new to him. And if the mysterious attacker was another player, what right did they have attacking him? They knew he was a player: they’d seen him in the gazebo!

‘ _It_ _’s possible they really don’t know you’re a player: sometimes the tower masks players’ identities. You did shout a bit last night, though, so they probably do know. What you need to remember is that their objective is likely different to yours. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Ren: I think they’re playing against you. All this really tells us is that they’re probably easier to break than a monster would be. If we can just work out how they were tracking you, whether it’s a prop or an ability, we—_ ’

‘ _No._ ’

‘ _No?_ ’

‘ _If they_ _’re a player, I can reason with them,_ ’ Ren said with admirable confidence. They’d walked far enough: he put the plate down and leaned against the tree, getting Divine Retribution out.

He felt Caïn pad over to sit by his ankles and say, ‘ _I_ _’m not saying you can’t, but you need to grasp that they’re playing against you. As in, directly against you. As in, the two of you won’t be able to win at the same time._ ’

‘ _What happens if we lose?_ ’

‘ _You get sent to the tower, but usually at some sort of disadvantage. I wouldn_ _’t recommend it as a method of attacking the tower, before you get any ideas._ ’

‘ _I wasn_ _’t_ going _to,_ ’ Ren defended himself. ‘ _The point of coming in here was to get the prop as well as the experience, I get that. See? I listened._ ’

‘ _Good boy,_ ’ Caïn remarked dryly and Ren shivered.

‘ _Let_ _’s all agree never to call me that again: all I can hear is Grandma._ ’

Caïn tried to convince him again to give up on the idea of reasoning with the attacker, but Ren was decided. Players were human and it was worth at least trying to talk to whoever it was. He did eventually relent and agree to stand somewhat apart from the profiterole tower, which Caïn said he’d guard temporarily so they could see if the attacker was tracking Ren on his own or the profiteroles.

They hadn’t even waited an hour before the first sound came. Ren tensed up: staring into the darkness, he waited for more, and wasn’t disappointed. Whoever it was, was taking slow, cautious footsteps towards him, almost too quiet to hear, but he was in a state of hyper-vigilance and heard everything. He was less successful at placing the attacker in the space around him, but he had at least a decent idea of where they were. When they were close enough, he shot his chains at them, exactly the same as the previous night; as before, this didn’t work, and they made a dash for him. The aim this time was to not get stabbed: he took a step back to stabilise his position and whipped the chains at the attacker — not enough to really hurt, but enough to slow them down. Predictably, they slammed the chains away with that same screech of metal, gaining ground fast through the twisted trees. They were going quicker than Ren had expected: when he heard the soft sound of displaced ash within stabbing range of him, he almost bolted, but hurled the chains at the direction he’d heard it come from to gain time, reached behind him, and brought out the Spider’s Silk. Before the attacker had managed to land a hit on him, he had their arms bound to their sides; there was a grunt of frustration, an attempt at a struggle, and then nothing. The forest went still again.

“You’re a player, aren’t you?” Ren asked.

There was a pause, longer than could be considered natural. Then, “Obviously.”

It was a man’s voice, with no discernible accent. There was nothing to place it, really: it was just there, and pleasant. He didn’t say anything else.

“What’s your mission?”

No answer.

“It’s to destroy Grandma’s Treasure, right?”

Still no answer. Ren frowned at the darkness. This wasn’t ideal: he only had five minutes until the Spider’s Silk lost effectiveness, or fifteen minutes if he used all of its uses together. But maybe this man wouldn’t notice if it wore off…?

“Mine is to protect it,” he said, trying to offer something as a show of trust. “It’s got to be intact by the end of the three nights.”

‘ _Ren, there_ _’s a skill to keeping your cards hidden and I’ve got to say, this isn’t really it._ ’

‘ _I know what I_ _’m doing!_ ’

He didn’t. He tried again: “I want to work with you. I’ve got you tied up right now so there’s no reason for me to lie, right? I could kill you at any time.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

That was something: encouraged, Ren continued. “I want to find a way for both of us to win this game, okay? But I can’t if you don’t tell me exactly what your mission is.”

There was another long pause: he was just getting ready to try again when the man said, “Your mission is clearly the opposite of mine, and you know it. What are you trying to achieve here?”

“So that _is_ your mission? To destroy it?”

“Yes,” the man said in a bored voice. “For all the good it may do you, my mission is to destroy Grandma’s Treasure within three nights.”

“You’ve already destroyed it, though. Twice. Is that all the tower said?”

“That’s all it said.” The man sounded annoyed now. “Here’s some advice: stop worrying about other people’s affairs.”

“No,” Ren said, and began to talk to Caïn. ‘ _That doesn_ _’t make much sense, does it?_ ’

‘ _The not meddling part? I_ _’m actually with him on that one. But you’re right, it doesn’t make sense that he’s already destroyed it and he hasn’t won the game. More to the point, it would be horribly unfair to you if he only had to destroy it once._ ’

‘ _Yeah. And I was thinking, but Grandma never seemed that attached to the profiteroles, did she? Like, I kept expecting to get shouted at, but she never cared._ ’

“Are you finished?” the man, not privy to this conversation, asked.

“I’m thinking: give me a second.”

“It sounds like you’ll need several.”

‘ _Do you think the treasure wasn_ _’t the profiteroles after all?_ ’ Caïn asked. ‘ _That_ _’s not a bad idea, actually. The tower never said so either, did it?_ ’

‘ _It didn_ _’t!_ ’ Ren agreed, excited now. ‘ _It never said that._ ’

‘ _And what_ _’s the one thing Grandma’s seemed to care about most since the game started?_ ’

‘ _Hansel, right?_ ’

‘ _Right._ ’

“The profiterole tower isn’t the treasure,” Ren said aloud, and was met with silence. “I just worked it out. It’s me.”

“Incredibly arrogant thing to say. Do you mean Hansel?”

“Yeah, of course I mean Hansel!” Flustered, he almost let go of the Spider’s Silk, not that it had much life left in it. Trying to focus, he explained his case to the unwelcoming darkness. “I don’t know how much you’ve been watching, but Grandma seems to really, really love Hansel even though she also wants to eat him, but that’s not important right now. I think he — or me, I guess — is the treasure. And…” He listened to Caïn for a second, and added, “And your mission is just to destroy the treasure, right? Not for it to stay destroyed?”

Guarded, the man confirmed this was true.

“So this is easy! You just need to kill me!”

The silk’s effectiveness wore off. It slid away from the man and Ren rolled it back up into its skein, putting it away while the man processed this.

“You want me to kill you?” he asked.

“It’s my ability: I can revive.”

“Explain that first, next time.”

“I’ve explained it now, haven’t I?”

‘ _Flying in the face of all caution, yes,_ ’ Caïn commented mildly. ‘ _Please don_ _’t tell him that we know you can revive at least twice. Please keep some things to yourself._ ’

The man didn’t hear that, or Ren’s retort: he seemed to think, and said. “In killing you, technically both of our missions will be complete, but if I don’t kill you, you will still win, by your logic.”

He left that hanging, as if it had some sort of significance to the conversation. Ren said, “Well, yeah, I guess. But wouldn’t it be better if you also won? Do you not trust me or something? But you won’t lose anything here: I’ll let you destroy the tower too if you like, no skin off my nose.”

“That wasn’t really my point. Why would you go out of your way like this when you stand to lose nothing? Surely you can see how that might not look trustworthy, from where I stand.”

“But I just want to help,” Ren said.

Silence.

“If we can both win, isn’t that better than only one of us winning?”

There was a small sound in his head: he realised it was Caïn laughing, but it didn’t sound as if it came from ill-will — nothing Caïn did ever seemed ill-intentioned. He was only laughing, and it was the only sound in the forest until the man said, “The tower doesn’t often allow both players to win.”

‘ _He_ _’s right, you know. Speaking like he’s got experience when he hasn’t even touched the second floor, but he’s right._ ’

“Maybe it did this time,” Ren suggested. “The right mix of abilities or something. Mine’s special, anyway.” He wanted this man to agree, felt he would have done anything to get him to agree and team up.

The man considered this. They were both aware they were short on time, and he must have known that destroying the patisserie would likely have the same result as the other two times had. It wasn’t long before he said, “Alright.”

To stay on the safe side, the man did destroy the profiterole tower. He didn’t seem to enjoy it much: where Ren would have taken out his frustrations on the innocent profiteroles, he just knocked it over, and once he had, they waited. There was a moment of held breaths (on Ren’s part, at least), but the tower didn’t say anything.

“There we go,” Ren (who had not yet learnt Caïn’s way of not sounding smug) said.

The man ignored it. “Is there anything I have to do in killing you to make sure you revive?”

‘ _See? He doesn_ _’t want to kill me: he’s safe_.’

‘ _Or he wants to know how best to go about making sure you stay dead_.’

“Nothing,” Ren replied. “Just go for it, but don’t make it too painful.” He thought for a second; awkwardness seemed to engulf them as the reality of this solidified. “Have you, uh, ever killed anyone before?”

“Not directly.”

“Okay. Just…try to do it quickly, then.” He’d been so cavalier before: it was embarrassing hearing fear work its way into his voice. To distract himself, he looked around the darkness, picking out indistinct shapes of branches against the differently-coloured darkness of the sky.

The man hadn’t yet made a move. “How long should I expect to wait before you revive?”

‘ _It took about five minutes last time_.’

“Maybe five minutes? Might take longer or shorter though, I’m never sure.”

“Have you done this a lot?”

‘ _Don_ _’t tell him_.’

So Ren made a non-committal sound. “It’s my ability,” he said, like that was an answer.

It was accepted as one, though. The man didn’t question it, and there was the sound of metal moving.

“I ought to…” the man started awkwardly, and Ren felt a hand reach for his shoulder. “To know where you are.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He moved closer. Something poked his stomach, and he helped guide it up gently, to just under where he thought his heart was.

“That feels about right,” he said, to be helpful.

“You don’t mind?”

“I told you, I don’t!”

“If you’re tricking me, I really will kill you.”

With that, the man angled his weapon and sliced up through Ren’s ribs, to his heart. The pain almost didn’t register: he was caught in stasis, caught between a firm hand on his shoulder, the thumb pressing just too hard into his collarbone (fear? Resolution? Comfort?), and a sharp, bright pain in his chest. Strength left him: he would have fallen, but was supported by the blade in his heart, and only his head lolled forwards. Just before everything left him, he felt his forehead connect with something warm.

 

 

It felt like something had died in Ren’s mouth. He gasped for air and hated the taste of it, but breathed in again, filling his lungs with oxygen. It was only after he’d got that out of the way that he realised he was kneeling in the ash, an arm around his shoulders. Naturally, it was still too dark to see anything.

“Three minutes,” the man said.

“What?”

“Since you died. It took you two minutes and forty-seven seconds, in case you wanted to know for future reference.”

“You counted?”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

Fair point: there wasn't much in the way of entertainment here. Ren struggled to his feet, still a little woozy, and felt hands reach out to steady him, but he didn’t need them. It was the same as the first two times: it wouldn’t take him long to get back to normal. He just had to hold onto a tree until he did.

‘ _Everything fine while I was gone?_ _’_

_‘Perfectly fine. You died very cleanly._ ’

“Well!” Ren said, clapping his hands together. “That’s done, then. Guess we’ve got to wait and see if we were right.”

“If you were right.”

“Not going to take credit for it?”

“I’m not taking the blame if you’re wrong. And it’s not as if I did anything.”

It was true: it wasn’t as if he’d done anything. Ren was feeling quite pleased with himself and Cain for figuring this one out. He did not particularly subscribe to the idea of not counting your chickens before they hatch: contentment filled him, patching up the holes that dying had left.

“Do you want to move out of the forest?” he asked.

“What difference would it make? We don’t need to go back to see Grandma.”

The man offered no other options, and fair enough, they didn’t actually have to do anything now. All that was left was to wait for the night to end, and try not to think about the possibility that they had failed.

Once or twice, Ren attempted conversation, but the man was clearly still on guard and didn’t much want to talk, and there wasn’t much they could talk about anyway if he wouldn’t tell Ren a single thing about him. Ren tried to mention some of his own experiences, but Caïn told him to stop that. So dawn crept upon them: it came at a crawl, as with the other two nights, and slowly the forest became visible again. Slowly, so did the man. Because he had absolutely nothing better to do, Ren watched: it was difficult to tell because the man was sitting down, but he looked well-built in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious, because his height hid it.  He was in a loose shirt with a black blazer, faded black jeans and heavy boots; he had notably long black hair in a plait that hung down one shoulder, and though the ends of his hair seemed to curl, the fringe pulled back on only one side of his face was straight. He didn’t look as if he smiled much. Before Ren realised he was being obvious, piercing eyes turned to him and frowned.

Trying to find something to say to justify himself, Ren asked, “Are those props?”

The man had what looked like two giant knitting needles lying by his leg. He nodded, and that was that.

‘ _I guess it_ _’d be rude to ask what they do…’_

_‘Probably! I imagine you’ll be turned down, anyway. Let’s just wait to see what the tower says and then we won’t have to deal with him anymore_.’

What with how slowly the light came upon them, it was difficult to tell when exactly it became ‘day’. Luckily, they didn't have to use their own judgement: Grandma decided for them. One minute, everything was silent but for the sounds of crows beginning to wake up; the next, there was a roar that shook the trees for miles around.

“ _Gretel!_ ” she screamed, her voice as chilling as oncoming doom. The earth began to rumble. “If you’ve hurt my grandson, I’ll rip you apart!”

All three of them had got to their feet, ready to run if necessary. But things weren't hopeless: she hadn’t called for Gretel the night before. Things were changing.

“I think she might have found out that you hurt me,” Ren said, a smile rising to his lips. “I don’t really want to fight her, though. Can’t the tower hurry up?”

‘ _Don_ _’t make it take longer out of spite_ ,’ Caïn said, and the man seemed to be of the same opinion, because he rolled his eyes.

Seconds ticked by. The rumbling had just begun to send the ash around their feet flying when the tower chimed in.

“Ding dong! Grandma’s Treasure has been protected. At 9:32 on November 30th, 2017, the player Ren Delacroix has successively cleared the two-person instance ‘Grandma’ and won the reward ‘Witch’s Jawbreaker’.”

There was enough time to swallow; enough time for the quakes heralding Grandma’s arrival to begin uprooting trees.

“Ding dong! Grandma’s Treasure has been destroyed. At 9:32 on November 30th, 2017, the player Ryhad Dalisirene has successively cleared the two-person instance ‘Grandma’ and won the reward ‘Witch’s Jawbreaker’.”

They never saw Grandma. Before she could crash through the forest to them, the world went dark, and then they were standing in the park, morning light filtering over the tops of the trees. Ren realised he was holding something: he looked down and saw a round sweet, white with specks of other colours in it.

 

[Prop: Witch’s Jawbreaker]

[User: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: Excellent.]

[Function: Two jawbreakers in conjunction can be used to break the causality principle of any item of a level under 10.]

[Restrictions: One-time use. The jawbreakers must be combined and used together for any effect to take place.]

[Remarks: Human bones aren’t governed by the causality principle, but it’s still worth a shot, right?]

 

Ren looked up, pocketing the jawbreaker. “Is yours useless on its own too?”

‘ _Ren I believe we_ _’ve talked about this but can you stop telling everyone absolutely everything, please?_ ’

A metre or so from him, Ryhad looked up from the identical jawbreaker in his hand. “It is,” he said.

“So we need to work together, right?” Excitement lit up Ren’s voice: he could hear it. “There’s no point in having a prop we can’t use, right?”

‘ _Ren, hold on a minute. I don_ _’t think it’s safe to team up with someone you don’t know,_ ’ Caïn said meaningfully, coming up to Ren’s legs and rubbing against them, but Ren didn’t look down at him. He was focused intently on the man standing across from him, watching him with an expression that gave nothing away.

‘ _I think it_ _’s fine,_ ’ Ren said.

‘ _He couldn_ _’t dangerous._ ’

‘ _Well, you could have been too._ ’

‘ _I wasn_ _’t._ ’

‘ _Maybe he isn_ _’t, then._ ’

‘ _But you don_ _’t_ know _that._ ’

‘ _I didn_ _’t know with you!_ ’

‘ _But I_ _’m clearly not dangerous._ ’

‘ _And I don_ _’t think he is,_ ’ Ren countered, and left it there because Caïn had sighed in a resigned way. That was one party convinced: one down, one to go.

“I’m strong,” he said, beginning to promote himself. “You saw my chains at work, right? And I can revive. It’s not like I’ll hold you back. How about we stick together just until we use the jawbreakers?”

“Why are you so desperate to team up?”

“I miss having company!” Ren said without a trace of shame. He took a step forwards, and stopped when he saw Ryhad stiffen. Smiling warmly, he said, “You heard, but my name’s Ren. This,” —he lifted Caïn up and lifted a paw to make it look like he was waving— “is my fox. He’s Caïn.”

‘ _Is this too patronising?_ ’ he asked internally.

There was another sigh. ‘ _I suppose it helps with the image I_ _’m going for. You know, I don’t think he knows what to make of you._ ’

Ryhad certainly gave off that impression, but he wasn’t leaving either. He said, “I have somewhere I need to go. I can’t team up with you.”

“Where are you going?”

A pause. “Poland.”

Ren took a moment to think about the geography, and grinned. “That’s the direction I’m heading: that’s fine! Hey, can you drive?”

Ryhad admitted he could. When he began to walk away, Ren followed him, and was told neither to leave, nor (shockingly) to stop talking. At a leisurely pace, the three of them left the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: pop quiz! what was the most unbearable part of this chapter  
> mirenwe: ren having to die again  
> jiirva: that woman licking him again  
> hosgard: ding dong! both good answers but both wrong. the correct answer was 'my husband being held up like a cat while i wasn't there to watch'


	7. it's raining men! hallelujah it's- [i am hit over the head with a baseball bat]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a speed-run of a fic. that's what it is. i've decided

It was an eight hour drive from Coburg to Krakow. The car Ryhad had come in was out of petrol: rather than break into a new one, he broke into a house with a garage, found the car keys, and used that. It took two houses to find a car with enough in the tank to make it worth stealing. Once this was done, they set off, Ryhad driving, Caïn napping, and Ren bartering for information.

No, it wasn’t exactly bartering. He gave information too, willingly, but it wasn’t as stilted and sterile as a trade. It was more like he was coaxing it out. Wide, empty land passed them by; back and forth, back and forth they went, little by little.

“Do you go to Poland a lot?”

“I go sometimes.”

“For work? You’re not Polish.”

“I’m not. I go for my cousin.”

“Is that who you’re going to see now?”

“Yes. Her and her partner.”

“Are you close to them?”

“Reasonably close.”

Best not to ask too much, then, in case they weren’t around anymore. Best not to ask about other family too, just in case. “Do you live in Germany usually?”

“No — France.”

“So you were just crossing through when you got caught up in an instance?”

“I was looking for one. I needed props.”

“You ended up using more than you got, though, right? There were those explosions on the first night. Those were props, weren’t they?”

“They were.”

A hum of interest, and then, pushing just a little, “What about how you tracked me? Was that a prop too?”

“You don’t stop talking, do you?”

“I haven’t really had anyone to talk to for days. It’s all coming out: it’s not my fault.”

The car slowed down, curving around another car parked haphazardly across the road. It sped up again; with it came, “It’s my ability.”

“Tracking?”

“In a word.”

“Do you think you could track someone for me?” Too much excitement: too much and it’d only spook him. Better to dial it back. “I’m looking for someone too, that’s all. My sister: she’s in China right now and I need to get to her.”

“Do you know she’s alive?”

“I think so. She’s Vike Larle.”

A pause. “Your sister was one of that first pair to attack the first floor?”

“Yeah! She’s amazing, right? So I know she’s alive, and if she did all that, she’s probably fine now, but it’s going to take a long time to get to her, so I want to let her know I’m fine too. That’s basically what I’m doing here: we just thought…I mean, I was doing the same as you, trying to get props, and I want to attack the second floor as soon as possible so I can beat it first and the tower will announce my name and she’ll know I’m fine and she’ll come to find me too.”

“That’s an ambition and a half.”

“Do you think I can’t do it?”

“I don’t know you.” Clouds were gathering in the sky, thickening and darkening by the minute. “I can’t find her.”

“What?”

“I tried. I can’t. Presumably there’s a distance limit to my ability.”

“What exactly _is_ your ability?”

Too much? But then came a challenging “What’s yours?”

Caïn was asleep anyway.

“I don’t really know. I can revive, that’s all. I have to activate it before dying or it doesn’t work, and I can do it at least twice in a short amount of time, but I don’t know what that amount of time actually is, or anything like that. I guess I’ll just have to find out.”

“Do I want to know how you figured out that was your ability?”

Laugh it off. “Can’t you guess?”

“I suppose you had it worse than most of us.”

“Probably! But how does yours work?”

“I have to have the target’s name, or a name they go by. I used Hansel for you, in the game. It tells me exactly how to get to whoever I’m tracking.”

“Like an internal GPS or something?”

“Not quite like that, no.”

“But you can’t find my sister?”

“I can’t, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, that’s okay! I guess I’ll just stick to my original plan. Hey, do you want to tag along?”

“To the second floor?”

“Yeah! I’m going to have to do it really soon anyway, so you might as well do it with me, right?”

“You really want to keep me around, don’t you?”

“Of course I do: it’s so _boring_ without people to talk to. Everything feels really empty these days, and talking fills it up, you know? And anyway, you’re a good person. There have definitely been less good people around.”

“Yes, I’ve been wondering how you’d react to someone more inclined to taking advantage of you.”

“With chains, mostly.”

There was the hint of a laugh.

“What are you going to do once you find your cousin, anyway? Stay with her?”

“Maybe. If she doesn’t need me to, I won’t.”

Humming in thought. “If you think you actually won’t after all, you should come with me.”

“To China.”

“Maybe not all that way! Like I said, if I get Vike’s attention, she’ll come and we can meet halfway. She’s really nice: she’s out there with her girlfriend who’s doing her Masters — they’re both English but—”

“You’re English?”

“What? Oh. Oh, no, she’s not my _blood_ sister, it’s just she’s always been _like_ a sister to me so I just… Anyway, they’re both English but they went to international schools so they’re fine. Her fiancée’s called Einierre, and she’s…I mean, she’s probably fine. I think she probably just didn’t go attack the first floor with the other two.”

“That doesn’t sound like a particularly English name.”

“Nah, she changed it when she came out. As a woman, I mean. You’re…I mean, you’re cool with that, right?”

“I’m fine with it.”

“Good! Anyway, they’re both _really_ nice, is my main point here. Like, you can’t help but like them: I think you’d have fun, if you came with. But obviously if you want to stay with your cousin, that’s the most important thing.”

“You just want a free ride.”

“What!” Ren spluttered with unexpected laughter, looking over at Ryhad’s profile. There was the slightest hint of amusement in the softening of his features. The car was just a degree too cold, Ren’s clothes just a degree too thin, and he leaned closer to the driver’s seat without quite realising that was what he was doing. With the steady growl of tyres in the background, he grinned and said, “That’s not it! I mean, obviously that’s a _perk_ , but—”

“You’re just digging yourself in further at this point,” Ryhad said calmly, switching the windscreen wipers on as rain began to fall.

“I’m not digging anything!” He turned around to argue further, and managed to wake Caïn up, who climbed over him gracefully and jumped onto the back seat to resume his nap while Ren pleaded his dubious innocence.

He didn’t get very far: both of them knew he needed a car and a designated driver. Eventually they dropped it, and the back and forth began again. By the time they’d entered the Czech Republic, at the expense of showing off Divine Retribution’s description, Ren had been allowed to tap the knitting needles.

 

[Prop: Mother Mouse's Knitting Needles]

[Owner: Ryhad Dalisirene (official player)]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Level: 4]

[Attack: Strong]

[Function: Twin weapons. Abnormally high durability. When rubbed together, there is a 15% chance of starting a fire.]

[Restrictions: Not applicable.]

[Remarks: You know, I'm not convinced knitting needles are supposed to be that sharp.]

 

“You’re an official player?” he asked, looking up from the knitting needles. He’d gotten something like a paper cut just from tapping one.

“I told you I’d never killed anyone.”

“Oh, I guess you did. You just…”

“Seem the type?”

Ren considered that. “Okay, now I think about it, that’s not the nicest thing I could have said, huh?”

“Not exactly.” A pause, in which there was rain. “You’re an official player too.”

“Yeah, can you believe it? I still can’t believe I got through the first game.”

“Why not? You managed Grandma’s game well enough.”

Ren considered that, too. It dawned on him that in the eyes of people not aware of Caïn’s existence, he might appear pretty clever. He felt guilty for it, like he was taking credit for work that wasn’t his, and turned away to look out at the rain. “It was just a really hard game, that’s all. I had to get saved by the moon god — I think they’re another monster? We didn’t really talk — and they gave me Divine Retribution.”

“Hence the name.”

“Yeah! Are your knitting needles from your first game too?”

“From the first floor. Suffice to say they weren’t given to me.”

“Next you’re going to accuse me of getting free hand-outs,” Ren said fake-haughtily, and was looked at in a way he couldn’t quite read, but didn’t think was negative, or at least not _too_ negative.

‘ _You_ are _technically blessed by the moon god, you know. I think they must have tweaked something to give you that ability of yours too. I think you could definitely say you got free hand-outs._ ’

‘ _Go back to sleep._ ’

‘ _As if I could sleep peacefully while you_ _’re out here telling a stranger all sorts of private information. Just don’t tell him about me. Spare me that._ ’

‘ _Yeah, yeah. Your secret, not mine — I know._ ’

“I’m glad I’m not cycling through this,” Ren commented. He was met with a sound of acknowledgement, and they sank into a shared silence, sweetened with the knowledge that conversation had actually occurred and probably could occur again but not while Ren now felt guilty about things. He sat back in the car seat, stretched out his legs, and watched the windscreen wipers go back and forth: faster now — the rain was getting heavier. They had to slow down, at risk of hitting other abandoned cars with the reduced visibility, but for at least an hour they made decent progress along the motorway. The rain didn’t get any heavier, the signposting was still legible even though neither of them spoke Czech, and Ren eventually figured out to turn the car heating on but then had to turn it off after the condensation started to build up. It was a normal car ride, until the car began to jitter to a stop.

It wasn’t for lack of petrol: the fuel gauge still showed the tanks were at 60%, but the car was jumping in and out of movement, like it was caught on something. Ren, uneducated in the ways of cars, was about to ask what was wrong when Ryhad drew the car to a halt, said, “Stay here,” and got out of the car.

‘ _Something_ _’s not right. Get out._ ’

Without questioning it, Ren did, and Caïn hopped out after him, into the pouring rain. He hated it immediately, but held his hands above his eyes so he could see, pushed his fringe back so it wouldn’t drip, and walked to the front of the car, where Ryhad had the hood open.

“I told you to stay inside.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Is that rust?”

It was rust. Ren didn’t really know what the inside of a car was supposed to look like, but he didn’t think it was ‘rusty’.

“It’s not because of the rain, right?” he asked as Caïn slipped underneath the car, out of the wet.

“Do you think a car that rusts like this in rain would sell?” He frowned, hair dripping. “It’s a prop or an ability.”

With that established, he slammed the hood shut and looked back out over the motorway, apparently unflustered by the rain pounding down on him. Ren looked with him, but saw nothing; apprehension closed over them and rain poured down.

‘ _There_ _’s more than one._ ’

Before Caïn had finished his sentence, the first shock-wave hit them. It wasn’t huge, nothing big enough to overturn cars, but the ground wrinkled and as they leapt out of the way, two figures became clear through the rain. Less than a second later, just as one of the figures dropped to the ground, another shock-wave rolled out through the concrete until it buckled and broke and bit at Ren’s ankles.

“Split up!”

Ren was already going right, to the field beyond the road, and saw Ryhad running the other way, the over-sized knitting needles in his hands. Getting Divine Retribution out, Ren comforted himself with the thought that this would at least be less tricksy than a tower game.

‘ _It_ _’ll be no less difficult if you don’t pay attention and try to fight._ ’

Caïn was running after him, over the drenched grass; when he ground to a halt and whirled around, Caïn caught up, and they both looked back out over the road.

Ren squinted through the rain. “Did neither of them follow me? What the hell?”

‘ _One did: there are three._ ’ Caïn was looking around, and there was the impression his hackles would have been raised if he didn’t look like a drowned rat.

‘ _Three?_ ’

Ren couldn’t see the third. He looked and looked, but couldn’t see them, and couldn’t hear anything over the rain. There was the groan of a shock-wave from the other side of the road, maybe a hundred metres away, and the clash of metal. On this side, everything was still.

‘ _One can make those quakes; one can create rust somehow. They_ _’re both almost definitely abilities, especially the latter. But they both went to fight Ryhad together: rust isn’t a strong in combat — is that why? But they must trust the third one to take care of you on their own. I know I heard a third one, but I don’t know where they’ve gone. They—_ ’

They appeared. They came as if out of mid-air, and it was only thanks to his heightened instincts that Ren managed to leap to the side in time to avoid a round-house kicked aimed where his head had just been. He whipped around to face his attacker: he saw her jump into the air and stay there.

‘ _She can fly?!_ ’

‘ _Abilities and props, Ren! Focus!_ ’

The young woman was lightly-built and it seemed the wind and rain must move her, but they didn’t: she was hovering in the air, and jumped down again, wielding a bat, which Ren dodged. He had to dodge it again, and again. Over and over, she swung the bat at him, fiercely denying him the chance to use his chains, but he refused to be caught in that trap: once he’d felt her rhythm, he used the half-second of downtime as she raised the bat again to shoot a chain right at her. It caught her off guard: he saw shock fly over her face. If he had wanted to, he could have pummelled right through her chest, but couldn’t, and the chain only caught her shoulder, pushing her off-balance. She didn’t fall: with the slightest push of her toes on the ground, she was back in the air, and her expression was ugly.

‘ _She can_ _’t fly_ ,’ Caïn said. ‘ _She can hover, but she can_ _’t fly. Don’t try to reason with her, they’re just here to ambush you and take your props: she won’t—_ ’

“I don’t want to fight you!”

‘ _Ren!_ ’

The woman didn’t seem to care. Possibly, she just couldn’t understand French, but he couldn’t really help that. In another attempt at communication, he lifted his hands as if in surrender, but then she was hurling the bat at him again and he had to guard.

There wasn’t much strategy to the way they fought. Neither of them seemed to know how to go about it: they attacked and defended viciously, and little by little, at Caïn’s prompt, Ren drew the woman back to the road through the threat of chains. She was never in close range long enough for him to use the Spider’s Silk, and he could never manage to get the chains around her; equally, he never quite had the nerve to use them as an offensive weapon. Overall, he was clumsy: it was the chains’ unquestionable strength that gave him an edge, not his skill, and when they did get back to the road, he almost tripped over the raised border. He could hear the other fight going on behind him, shock-wave after shock-wave, like that player had never learnt how to fight differently, and he wanted so badly to look, but the woman demanded all of his attention. There was no time to breathe.

‘ _She isn_ _’t hovering anymore._ ’

The observation meant nothing to him now he was trying to ward off a bat with chains that really weren’t suited to the purpose. He heard a scream from behind him.

‘ _It_ _’s been five minutes. I think it’s a prop with a time limit._ ’

What use was that to him? He had his hands full already. She was angrier now, more desperate, and there was so little he could do. If he could just get to the Spider’s Silk, that’d be something, but she didn’t give him the time.

‘ _It_ _’s possible she has an ability as well. It won’t be combative. You have to try and finish this: put the chains through her legs or something, if you don’t want to kill her. Her pain resistance is higher too, just like yours: stop worrying and incapacitate her._ ’

He tried. He did try, but his mind was a roller-coaster of thoughts that didn’t make sense, and he could barely keep up with everything that was going on. He had to get distance: he jumped backwards and sent a chain flying towards her, but in that second, something happened. The rain was clouding his vision: one second, he saw the woman’s face, unfamiliar and angry, and the next it was his mother’s. His chest throbbed; it threw him off. He diverted the chain and it fell to the ground limply; he was about to regain his footing when the woman, still with his mother’s face, raised the bat, and smashed it into the side of his head.

Human skulls weren’t made to withstand force like that. He thought he might have heard the crunch of bone before everything turned to black.

 

 

‘ _Don_ _’t move. Breathe as inconspicuously as you can. Though I suppose with the rain it doesn’t make much difference, and if they look back, they’d see your head’s healed. Oh well. Just don’t move for the moment._ ’

Reviving was as hard as it ever was. Ren tasted blood: some must have trickled down to his mouth and hadn’t got cleaned up in whatever restoration his ability performed on him.

‘ _What was that_ _…?_ ’

‘ _Her ability. Presumably she has the power to change her face into that of a loved one of whoever_ _’s looking at her or something. Did you see your sister?_ ’

‘ _My mother._ ’

‘ _Ah. I_ _’m sorry. It’s been about two minutes. One of them is dead: the one who probably had the rust. She and the shock-wave man are still fighting Ryhad: you’ll want to stop them. By that, I mean you ought to use the element of surprise you have and shoot a chain through one of them. This isn’t a suggestion. If you play it safe again, we’ll be back to where we started but they’ll know you can revive. It doesn’t have to be through the heart, but you have to take one of them out of the game. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is._ ’

‘ _I know._ ’ He wanted to apologise — for wasting time, for making things difficult for everyone — but he wasn’t all himself yet. He could follow orders, at least. When Caïn said it was safe, he sat up, faced the three people fighting on the other side of the road, and shot out a chain. It hit the woman in the lower back: he could see her shudder, felt the chain crash through the bone and muscle and flesh just to the left of her spine, coming out through her stomach. He drew it back, and she was still standing: out of fear, he did the same to her thigh. Then she fell. Apparently Ryhad had been expecting this: he took advantage of the other man’s surprise to decapitate him; then, he took care of the woman. It all happened very quickly, and once Ren realised what was happening, he didn’t watch. He drew the chain back, but didn’t retract it fully: he waited for the rain to clean it.

After a minute, Ryhad walked over to stand next to him. “Is that how you always fight?”

“I hadn’t really fought anyone before you.”

This was processed. “Does it hurt?”

“After I’ve revived? No.”

There was another pause. “I’ll find a car.”

Ren must have looked in a pretty bad state, then: he hated feeling so pathetic, and rushed to clear up the misunderstanding, jumping to his feet and following Ryhad. Caïn trotted along after them, drenched. They didn’t talk, or look over at the bodies, but while the atmosphere wasn’t exactly cheerful, it wasn’t terrible either. They found a rust-free car eventually: after they’d collected their bags, they continued driving, totally unconcerned with how they were soaking the seats.

“You didn’t kill her,” Ryhad said after about half an hour.

“I didn’t want to.”

“Do you resent me for killing them?”

“What?” He turned around, genuine confusion in his voice. “No, of course not! I’m just…I don’t want to do it.”

Ryhad nodded, and pulled out a small glass vial. “She had this on her.”

He seemed to be waiting for Ren to take it. Ren was looking at it in horror. “You robbed them?!”

Briefly, Ryhad looked at him in total surprise, but then turned back to the road. “It’s a prop. Are you against taking props they haven’t used?”

‘ _It_ _’s something everybody does,_ ’ Caïn agreed. ‘ _We should have told him about the hovering prop: that would have been useful._ ’

“I guess…if it’s a prop, then…”

“You don’t have to take it. I kept the others’.”

“No, I’ll take it.”

The conversation ended there. A quick check proved that the vial apparently induced tears, as if that was good for anything. Apparently the ones Ryhad had picked up weren’t that useful either.

‘ _Sometimes props aren_ _’t,_ ’ Caïn said philosophically. ‘ _It_ _’s why there’s a Rubbish ranking._ ’

It took another few hours of driving to reach Krakow. The car had almost run out of petrol by the time they did reach it, so they left it near the city centre and abandoned it there, taking their bags with them, Caïn at their feet. It was late afternoon, nearing six o’clock, and the plan was to find somewhere to dry off properly, and go to find Ryhad’s cousin in the morning. Ren wasn’t entirely happy with leaving the second floor when there was a black tower hanging tantalisingly a bare kilometre away from them, but he was still wet and tired, and wanted to go and find new clothes, and hopefully a place to bathe if no showers were available, so he thought he could wait a day, maybe. He didn’t want to leave it any longer, but also didn’t want to attack the tower right away. It was not difficult to convince him to wait.

Krakow was bigger than the cities Ren had been in so far. It had the potential to be beautiful: if things had been normal, he might have enjoyed seeing it, enjoyed all this travel, but the city felt simultaneously deserted and hostile, with no lights to combat the oncoming night. The three of them walked along the streets, keeping to the shadows (there were many shadows, at this time of day) and looked away from the few people they saw. They were heading to a hotel Ryhad remembered from coming to see his cousin on other occasions: they were just walking along one of the main roads that led to the giant square over which the tower loomed when Ren realised they were being followed.

The other two had apparently realised before him: it was through their reactions that he knew. Ryhad had begun to walk faster, and he muttered a warning not to look back, or give any other indication they knew. If that was supposed to ward off the people following them, it didn’t work: by the time they reached the next block, there were heavy footsteps behind them, as if their pursuers wanted to be noticed. Perhaps they did. There were more of them, by the time they turned into the next street.

“We’re going to have to run for it.”

“Run where?”

Ryhad paused. There was no way to ignore the pursuers now: there were three groups of them, from three different angles. The largest group only seemed to have about four people, according to Caïn, and the other two were smaller, but those were still not good odds.

They’d just come out into the main square, leaving them exposed to all three groups.

“The tower, then,” Ryhad said, and they ran.

The pursuers followed them, but the tower was too close: before any of the props and abilities they could hear being activated behind them could take any sort of effect, the three of them were beneath the dark bulk of it. It took just a thought for the world to go white, erasing all trace of the people who had been following them. Then, the tower announced:

“Ding dong! The black tower’s second floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Welcome to the Happy Seaside Town! Please find the Mermaid Princess!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: pop quiz! what was-  
> jiirva: i don't want to play these games with you anymore all you do is talk about your husband  
> hosgard: maybe if you had a husband you'd understand. mirenwe what are you doing  
> mirenwe, on phone: i'm checking to see how close they are to clothes shops and some kind of body of water for showers  
> jiirva: see, this is a good boy. i like this boy. why couldn't i plot the downfall of an entire island with this boy  
> [hosgard is sulking because his husband is away and his only friend is like this. do your best, hosgard!]


	8. oh i do like to be beside the seaside [take it away boys] OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEAAAAA

The tower had a knack for naming things. Happy Seaside Town oozed cheerfulness: it was a collection of houses clustered in the valley between two sea cliffs, a stone’s throw from the ocean, and it looked entirely artificial. The sea was a dye-like turquoise, the houses a mix of buttercup yellow, bubblegum pink, and burnt sienna, the streets bordered with grass and flowers that had a plastic sheen to them. All the buildings were slightly rounded, as if they were afraid of sharp edges. There were caws of seagulls, but even those were sweeter than real seagulls’, just like how the salty scent of the sea was almost saccharine. A light breeze blew through the town, bringing with it the sound of chatter, along with white spores that twirled in the air. The sun shone brightly, the streets were full of people in charmingly quaint clothing, and there didn’t seem to be anything practical at all.

‘ _You can_ _’t expect the underground world to have an economy that makes sense to you,_ ’ Caïn explained as they walked warily through the impeccably-clean streets. ‘ _People survive in their own way here. I wonder if the tower_ _’s masked your appearances. It does, sometimes. Nobody looks about to kill you, anyway._ ’

Nobody seemed to pay attention to them, that was why. It wasn’t like any game Ren had been in before: everyone looked human. Ryhad must have seen his confusion, and explained at around the same time Caïn did that this was the underground world, not the monster world: two countries, as it were, pushed together, with movement between them, and games took place in both.

“It’s not the worst place for a game,” Ren said optimistically. “Like, compared to Grandma’s forest. It’s picturesque.”

“Wait until you see what we have to do before you say that.”

Thinking logically, they went down to the seaside to find the Mermaid Princess, but couldn’t see any sign of her. The town was small, but rather than go back and search it all, Ryhad tracked her: they went up the hill, and the further up the valley they went, the more the crowds thinned. By the time they reached a square at the top of the town, just before it turned into pastureland sloping up into twin hills, there was no one around. In that environment, the giant closed-top fish tank they found parked in the middle of a square stood out. Inside was a mermaid: long, silvery tail; curling red hair floating around her head like seaweed; pasty skin covered in scales; wide, vacant eyes that flicked from side to side, and what looked like a permanent pout. It didn’t seem as if the fish tank was large enough for her to stretch out properly. On the other side of it were three people: Ren was just wondering if they were human or from the underground world when he recognised one.

Jewen recognised him at the same time. They both stared at each other, and only a quick warning from Caïn reined Ren in: otherwise, he’d have tried to strike up a conversation.

“It took you long enough,” the mermaid said, her round, round eyes staring at them. “I’ve been waiting so long. You have to help me, okay? I need to get out of here.”

Ren looked up at Ryhad with the hope of a mutual puzzled look, but Ryhad never took his eyes off the tank, one hand on the place he kept the knitting needles. “Why do you need us?” he asked. “You have three humans already there.”

“The tower wants me to pit you against each other,” the mermaid said matter-of-factly. It seemed as if she had exactly one expression and no intention of looking anything other than permanently alarmed and pouting. “Come closer.”

So they went closer, until they could only see the other three humans through the water. The mermaid watched them, swimming to the bottom of the tank so she could give Caïn a little wave. Ren didn’t think she knew how to blink.

“It’s like this,” she said when she swam back to eye-level. Somehow they could hear her perfectly, despite her being in water. “You have to help me out of this tank. I’ll tell you what to do, so help me collect everything to get me out, and the first team who manages it will win the game. Isn’t that fair? I need to leave,” she said seriously. “I don’t like asking you awful humans for help, but I need to go and see Snegurka, and I can’t very well get out by myself. You can’t break it, either. You can try, but nothing will happen. So you all have to listen to me, okay?”

“Do you mind if we try to break the tank?” Ryhad asked.

“I don’t mind.”

“We’ve already tried it,” the man on the other side who wasn’t Jewen said. “Nothing breaks it.”

Ryhad did not listen to him or even look at him: neatly, he brought out one of the knitting needles and stabbed the tank. There was a sound like a storage locker being dropped by a crane onto concrete, and everyone but the mermaid winced. Ren saw up-close the effort it took to hold the rebound force. The tank didn’t have a scratch on it.

“See?” Jewen said snidely. “Did that satisfy your curiosity?”

He was shushed by the woman next to him, but not before Ryhad had shot him a look of total and utter disinterest. They all turned to the mermaid, who was tapping at the glass near Caïn, trying to get him to come near her. Without looking up, she said, “You have to come back every day to get a new task, okay? You’re in two groups, so you’re competing. Today I need you to go and find the Pin Cushion Plant: it’s in the forest way over there,” —she pointed— “and it’s up very tall trees. I need those, so each group needs to go and get one for me, please.”

No one moved. Ren did try to, but Caïn told him not to and Ryhad grabbed his collar, so he stayed put and waited with them for the tower announcement.

It came: “Ding dong! Triggered the main game: ‘Help the Mermaid Princess escape!’ There are two teams of players. The team that helps the Mermaid Princess out of the tank first will be considered the winner; conversely, the other team will be considered the loser. One day and night in the underground world is equal to five hours of play time. The game will terminate after five days. If the Mermaid Princess is not free by this time, both teams will have failed.

“Poor Mermaid Princess has found herself in a tank! However will she confess her love to Snegurka now? Players, let’s all be good children and help her! True love wins!”

The tower had spoken: all of them began to run for the hill the mermaid had indicated.

For obvious reasons, it was both a blessing and a curse that everyone’s natural physical ability had been significantly augmented. They were essentially on even footing, just a higher footing than they would have been if the towers had never appeared. It came down, as it well should, to ability and experience and stamina. Within five minutes, Ren realised with pleased surprise that he soared above the others in all three categories. The woman on the other team was doing alright, but Jewen and the other man couldn’t keep up to her pace once they began to scale the hill. Ryhad held his own, about neck and neck with the woman. Caïn seemed as if he could have gone at any speed he chose to, and stayed at Ren’s heels, alternately hidden and revealed by the tall, almost knee-height grass they ran through. It didn’t put up much resistance; Ren hoped there weren’t ticks. On the upwards climb, he paced himself so the others almost caught him up by the top of the hill, but then he sprinted down it, ready to burst with energy. The wind whistled around him, the sunlight was an embrace, the smell of the sea was refreshing: he felt happy, running down onto the pastures that spread out from the dunes. It was like a weekend run to warm-up for a competition.

There were actual things to do, too, though.

‘ _He_ _’s probably not going to be offended if I try and find the plant first, right?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’d be surprised. He can come and find you: let’s make a head-start._ ’

“I’m going on ahead!” he yelled back behind him, got a breathless “I can see that,” in return, and — with controlled, regular breathing and the comforting push-back of springy earth, ran. The others couldn’t keep up with him, but even at that pace, the pastures stretched on for longer than he’d expected: by his watch, it took almost twenty minutes to see the forest in the distance. Another ten, and he was slowing down, long shadows covering him as he looked around the forest. Heaving for air, he tilted his head to look at the regularly-spaced trees that shot directly upwards, their ridged trunks at least ten times his height. The only branches were right at the top: he had to squint because the sky was so bright, but he thought he could see fat things like seed pods nestled among the leaves.

“Huh,” he said, looking down to the forest floor. No fallen Pin Cushion Plants were conveniently lying near him: it was just some sawdust-like covering bathed in the sunlight that shone down through the gaps in the trees.

‘ _They_ _’re coming._ ’

Ren looked to the side: the others were, in fact, coming. He probably had about another two or three minutes of head-start. He ought, then, to take advantage of it.

‘ _How am I supposed to do this?_ ’

‘ _Oh, Ren. You climb._ ’

‘ _I_ know _that, but_ _…oh god, am I going to have to use Divine Retribution?_ ’

‘ _What_ _’s wrong with it? I don’t think the Spider’s Silk would work. Try shooting up to those branches._ ’

Ren looked up, and grimaced. “I hate this,” he announced, just so the world in general knew, and activated Divine Retribution. He wasn’t convinced it would reach to the top of the tree, and to be fair, the first time, it didn’t. Caïn suggested only shooting one chain, and when he tried that, he did manage to wrap it around the branches. He tested the strength, and grimaced some more. Heights weren’t his favourite thing in the world.

It took effort to pull himself up. It wasn’t like when he usually retracted Divine Retribution: it was slow, and some muscle inside of him was straining terribly, not to mention his other actual physical muscles that were straining to keep his posture such that he wouldn’t bump into the tree constantly.

He wasn’t very far up at all by the time Ryhad and the woman from the other team made it to the forest. Ryhad was fine: he got to surreptitiously lean against the tree and look vaguely dignified while he caught his breath. The woman didn’t have a second to breathe. There was exhausted resignation on her face as she ran straight for a different tree. Ren couldn’t work out what she was trying to do until she jumped, and landed on a long, thin needle that had shot into the tree trunk out of mid-air. More appeared: gasping for breath, she climbed them around the tree like stairs. She was faltering, though: she couldn’t keep up with Ren’s speed. Honestly, his heart went out to her, but Caïn told him to stop thinking about that and focus on not falling.

It was tough-going. His entire body ached even once he’d found a rhythm to climb to: it took notable effort just to keep in the right position for the chain to pull him up without pulling his arm out of its socket, and it took notable nerve to not look down at the ground that was increasingly far away from him. The breeze was nice, he thought. He liked the breeze, until it became a wind and threatened to unbalance him. His arms were shaking by the time he pulled himself to the top. Divine Retribution was perfectly secure, but he grabbed the branches anyway, trying desperately not to look down, and surveyed the Pin Cushion Plants among the leaves. The sun was hot on his back: he was damp and aching and already preemptively tired at the thought of running back to the mermaid, and he looked up on the plants in a state of distress. They were as aptly named as the town. They looked like avocados in the shape of amoebas, and each one was covered in spines. There was no one to complain to, and the woman from the other team was almost at the plants on her tree: gritting his teeth, he grabbed one with both hands and began to let himself down.

It was a balancing act and his hands were bleeding before he was halfway down the trunk. At that point he’d had enough: squeezing his eyes shut, he removed all the brakes and fell down the remaining distance, stopping himself just before he was about to hit the ground. It still hurt: he yelped in pain and had to dig the spines into his skin to not drop the plant. Before anything could get any worse, he felt hands at his sides, supporting him awkwardly: he got his feet on the ground and began to retract Divine Retribution, handing the plant over to Ryhad.

“Your problem now,” he said.

Ryhad eyed his bloodied palms, and took the plant without blinking.

‘ _I think we need to work on your technique but it got the job done. Back we go._ ’

Before the woman had got past the midway point, Ren and Ryhad looked at each other, nodded, and began to run back. This stretch was harder. Caïn was the only one who didn’t seem any worse for wear, but they made it back to the town eventually. It was then that the second problem presented itself: the Mermaid Princess had moved. How she had managed to move with a tank that large, Ren couldn’t begin to guess, but they used Ryhad’s ability to track her to a similar but smaller square a little further down the town.

With empty eyes, she blinked at them, waved exclusively at Caïn, and said, “Oh, you’re back.”

Neither of them could quite speak. Since he wasn’t holding the plant, Ren decided to forego post-run stretches and sat down on the cobblestones, breathing heavily. Ryhad apparently had standards he held himself to or something and didn’t: doing an admirable job of acting like he wasn’t bone-tired, possibly ready to collapse, and sweating at least as badly as Ren was, he approached the tank with the plant and held it out questioningly.

“Oh,” the mermaid said, peering at it. “It looks about right. I guess you should just leave it on top of the tank. Did you get human sweat all over it? That’s disgusting, don’t do that. No more sweat, okay?”

She didn’t appear to mind the blood, of which there was a significantly larger amount.

They had to wait twenty more minutes for the other team to arrive. They too were in a terrible state, but they had a plant, and Jewen presented it to the mermaid while the other two collapsed. The woman looked about to faint, and Ren couldn’t blame her, if they’d just run back without a break.

While the five humans tried to recover in their own ways, the mermaid looked up at the two plants resting on top of her tank, and her expression gave nothing away. Then she said, “I guess you both pass. But you’re all too noisy. Don’t you know how to be quiet? I don’t like it. Let’s do things differently next. Tomorrow…” She appeared to think, then pointed at Ren’s team. “You were first, so come back in one day, okay? You,” —she pointed to the other team— “come half an hour later. And I won’t tell you where it is next time, so you won’t have to race around. Can you leave now? I don’t like looking at you.”

The two teams turned to leave in different directions, but before they’d quite left the square, Ren turned around, and caught Jewen’s eye. They looked at each other; Ren didn’t know what to say.

“Is your hand okay now?”

Jewen laughed unpleasantly. “That’s what you ask?” he asked, like he hadn’t been waiting to be talked to. “Here’s a friendly piece of advice: don’t assume we’re friends just because we’ve seen each other before. I’m not going to spare you, and I wouldn’t expect you to spare me.”

‘ _That was nice of him,_ ’ Caïn remarked as the other team turned to leave. ‘ _I think that might have been his way of genuinely warning you to be less trusting._ ’

Ren frowned. He might have replied, but wasn’t sure how to word what he wanted to express, and before he could, Ryhad asked him, “You’ve met before?”

“In the first floor: we were on the same side, then.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Not really?” Ren began and then was reminded by Caïn that he did know one thing. “He’s a reserve player.”

This was accepted with a nod.

“Oh well,” Ren said: they began to walk and he sighed, stretching. With great depth of feeling, he declared, “I need a _shower._ ”

 

 

No showers were located. In the absence of them, Ren marched down to the seafront and continued walking, straight into the sea. The water was unnaturally bright and clear, but it didn’t look as if it would hurt him, so — while the other two watched — he flung his bag off and waded until the water was chest-high, then sank back. It was chilly, but the sun was hot; he dunked his head under and rubbed off the sweat that had crusted around his neck. When he resurfaced, he saw with delight that Ryhad had opted to join him.

“Feels better, right?”

“I can’t say the salt water is doing anything for my cuts.”

“I think I heard somewhere that it’s supposed to help healing anyway,” Ren said blithely, and began to float on his back.

In his bag somewhere, he did have spare clothes, but he wasn’t about to change on a beach, no matter how empty. When they’d had enough, they went back to the town, dripping. If the underground people noticed anything unusual about them, they didn’t let on.

The space just in front of the beach was busiest. There was a main square with what looked like an inn at one end, and it was decked in some kind of bunting; so were the buildings that ringed the square. It was all very pretty, and they walked right by it to find somewhere they could wait out the next few hours. Staying at the inn sounded whimsical and probably suicidal: they looked around, and eventually decided a sea cave would work better. The Happy Seaside Town was like something out of a storybook: naturally, it had caves and grottos. They had to walk over a series of rock-pools to get to one, but once they were in its slightly-clammy embrace, they could at least relax. They each took turns guarding the entrance while the other changed. After, Ren was still damp, but that was entirely his fault, and at least he had short hair, unlike some people who had had to leave theirs to dry in its plait to avoid dealing with it. Along with an actual shower, they were going to have to find conditioner at some point, Ren decided. Sitting down and leaning against the cave wall, he brought Caïn over to sleep on his lap and stroked him, yawning.

“I think that was my last change of clothes,” he said. “I need to get new ones soon.”

“I don’t think I’d recommend this town. The shops seem to sell swimwear and nothing else.”

“It’s kind of empty, isn’t it?” He yawned again, and this time Ryhad looked up at him. The sun was still fierce and there was plenty of light to see each other by, even in the cave.

“When did you last sleep?” Ryhad asked.

That took some thought: along with increased strength and all the rest of the gang, he’d stopped feeling the need to sleep. “Uh…before the Grandma instance, I think? I didn’t sleep that well, though.”

“We’ve got some time left before we need to go and see the Mermaid Princess again. You can rest.”

“Aren’t you tired too?”

Eyebrows were lifted. “Am I the one yawning?”

A fair point: Ren didn’t argue any longer. With a warm body curled up on his thighs, he leaned against the cave wall and tried to think of nothing. It wasn’t easy to fall asleep, but the physical exhaustion helped; the next thing he knew, his name was being called, and he shook himself awake.

“Is it time to go?” he asked, still yawning.

“It is.”

He had to lift Caïn into his arms to get up because he didn’t want to shove him off onto the rock floor. The dampness seemed to mostly have faded away by now, and the sunshine that blared down on them as they walked up the town helped.

“Did the light change while I was sleeping? Like, ever?”

Ryhad shook his head. “If it did, I didn’t notice it. She’s this way.”

The giant fish tank had, by some means, moved again. Now, it was far enough down the town that even standing by it, they could just about hear the hustle and bustle around the main square — it helped that this hustle and bustle was busier than the day before. While the town was lively, the mermaid seemed to be dead, floating in the middle of the tank with no expression and no movement. She jerked into life when she saw them coming, and shifted so she was facing the right way up to try and coax Caïn over to her. He did not go; she didn’t seem too despondent about it.

“You need to go and get a Silk Fish this time, okay?” she said. “They’re in rivers around here. Go find one for me. I don’t mind if it’s dead or alive.”

And that was that. The fun thing about compound words was that it was difficult to tell if this was a fish made of silk or one that produced silk, or something else — what _was_ certain was that Ryhad wasn’t able to track it. Presumably species names didn’t work with his ability. They had to search for actual rivers by themselves like peasants, and it took almost a full hour to even find one. It was in between two fields on the other side of one of the sea cliffs, babbling happily between thick grass and wildflowers. There didn’t seem to be any agriculture to speak of, which, to Ren (a country-bred boy), was unforgivable.

‘ _I wish you_ _’d stop worrying about how the underground people feed themselves. Usually it’s with humans. Let’s just catch these fish._ ’

The river — more of a stream, really — was as clear as the sea, and every so often a pearly-white fish would appear and then disappear off on its fishy business. It was hot, and there was less breeze than the previous ‘day’; fluffy spores floated around in the still air as Caïn settled down by the bank and Ren and Ryhad tried to figure out how to catch a fish. Needless to say, neither had any experience in this.

“Can’t you get Caïn to do it?” Ryhad asked, watching the stream. “You have him so well-trained.”

“He’s a house-fox,” Ren blurted out before Caïn could give him a better answer. “He can’t hunt for himself. Look: he’s not even interested. I don’t think I could get him to do it.”

This answer was accepted without protest. Ren considered using the Spider’s Silk on the fish, but couldn’t help worrying that the stickiness wouldn’t work in water even if he could get it around a fish: it was one of his only useful props and he didn’t want to waste a use on something like this. Apparently Ryhad had nothing useful either, and they were left with their bare hands. It was in testing this method that they learnt why Silk Fish were called Silk Fish: when threatened, the little bastards spat out bursts of silk with little to no effectiveness beyond being kind of repulsive.

Catching fish, it turned out, was not easy. They both had to roll their sleeves up and either lean over the bank, or — in Ren’s case, after some fruitless attempts — get into the stream: they leaned over until their backs ached, waiting for an unsuspecting fish to wander by and let itself be caught. Unfortunately, many of the fish that did wander by did not want to be caught, and defended themselves with spurts of silk. Neither of them were spared this: Ryhad’s clothes were covered in little webs of silk within half an hour, and Ren got shot in the forehead by one, causing him to fall over backwards into the water. He laughed through most of it. Ryhad didn’t exactly laugh (he didn’t seem the type), but there were definite hints of mirth to the lines of his eyes when Ren did manage to extricate himself from the shallow stream and sit up, soaked. It could have been innocently, honestly fun, if there wasn’t always that undercurrent of fear that the other team would beat them to it.

“Though, thinking about it, surely we only have to make sure to get there the quickest on the last day,” Ryhad said when this point was raised. “There’s no real point to being quicker on any of the other days — except to get an advantage for the next day — because there are so many useless hours.”

They caught a fish after eighty minutes of trying. It struggled in Ren’s hands and he made a face, but managed not to drop it. The most unpleasant part was when it died: as they hurried back to the town, its movements became steadily weaker, until it wasn’t moving at all. He felt vaguely sick. The day didn’t feel as comfortable as it had a moment ago, but there was nothing to be done about it. Carrying a dead fish gingerly, he followed Ryhad’s lead through the town streets, and eventually came to the fish tank, which had moved again. It seemed they had arrived just as the other team was leaving. A fish was already lying dead in the heavy sun on the top of the tank.

There was a slight air of smugness to Jewen as he looked at them and turned away. They didn’t exchange words, and it was probably better like that; Ren wouldn’t have known what to say. He didn’t like remembering that they had real, actual human opponents — opponents who probably wouldn’t survive if they won, and vice versa. Unless this was like the Grandma instance, but what were the chances of that?

The mermaid watched him dispassionately as he deposited the fish on top of her tank.

“Took you a while,” she said, regarding it without any emotion at all. “You need to be quick, okay? But not too quick, I guess. Come back in a day and half an hour.”

That was all she said before she turned over and seemed to go to sleep.

‘ _Are games supposed to feel like this?_ ’ Ren wondered, looking at her.

‘ _Like what?_ ’

‘ _Like we_ _’re not doing anything._ ’

‘ _No. You_ _’re right: this is all too straightforward,_ ’ Caïn said, trotting after Ren as he and Ryhad left to go back to the seashore. ‘ _Let_ _’s wait for the difficulty to come._ ’

The town was lively as ever, but no one gave them a second glance as they walked down through the more populated areas. There were more people on the beach today, too, and as they walked from one brightly-coloured street to another across sandy cobbles, Ren spotted a monster or two mixed in with the underground people. They weren’t like the monsters he’d seen on the first floor: these were mostly animals behaving like people did, milling about small chintzy cafés and souvenir shops (mostly selling shells). He caught Ryhad watching one of the monsters, when they were almost at the main square; when asked, he said he’d seen that one on his first floor, but their presence didn’t seem to make sense based on how standoffish they had been in the game.

“Maybe they’re just down here for the festival?” Ren suggested as they walked into the main square. It was covered in more bunting than before: little paper flags waved in the sea breeze, hung from every available surface. There was a large banner stretched out across the front of the pub, bidding guests welcome.

Ryhad didn’t seem satisfied with the answer: in a low voice, so as not to be heard by the waves of locals and monster tourists, he said, “I feel like something’s wrong.”

“Because there are so many people? Maybe you just don’t like crowds.”

“That’s not it.”

“ _Do_ you like crowds?”

“No,” he conceded, and looked upon Ren with gentle resignation when Ren gave him an ‘I told you so’ look.

“There you go, then,” Ren said. “You’re just uncomfortable because there are so many people.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Ryhad conceded in a sarcastic tone.

“It’s not like they have anything to do with us, anyway, and they don’t seem to care about us at all. Let’s just focus on getting whatever item’s next before the other team does. We’ll just clear the floor and forget about whatever’s going on here, okay? Although,” Ren said, when they were at the very edge of the square, on the steps down to the beach. He looked back at the inn and the sign above it. “I wonder why so many people came here for a banana wine festival. They don’t even grow bananas here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: has anyone else noticed how basically all the monsters and bosses so far have been women  
> jiirva: women be shopping and women be monstrous  
> mirenwe, crying: YOU'VE GOTTA RESPECT WOMEN


	9. ba banana baba banana nana ba banana baba banana nana

At Ren’s loud insistence, Ryhad got some rest in the down-time before the next item, and Ren spent the hours trying to keep himself occupied. Caïn napped for some of it, but had apparently napped enough for the time being and woke up one hour in, ready to lick himself clean.

‘ _I didn_ _’t know foxes licked themselves_ ,’ Ren said while reorganising his bag. ‘ _You haven_ _’t licked yourself before._ ’

‘ _I prefer not to unless the situation is dire. And we have the free time._ ’

‘ _You_ _’re telling me._ ’

‘ _It worries me._ ’

Those words sent a jolt to Ren’s stomach, which had probably been the intended effect. ‘ _Why does it worry you?_ ’

‘ _There_ _’s no reason to make the days so long. The tasks obviously don’t take that much time. I wonder if there’s something we ought to be doing and aren’t. Or rather, I know there is. I’m just not sure what it is. It’s all very uncertain. I’ll think on it._ ’

‘ _Do you think we_ _’re supposed to be interacting with the town after all?_ ’

Caïn looked up from licking his stomach. ‘ _Outside of what the Mermaid Princess asks you to do, you mean? I don_ _’t believe so. Maybe. But the tower’s instructions were so vague._ ’

They had been, it was true. In ordinary circumstances, Ren would never have been able to remember what the tower had said, but his memory, as with the rest of him, was changing as the black towers’ grip grew tighter. ‘ _It didn_ _’t tell us to follow the mermaid’s instructions,_ ’ he said. ‘ _Just like with Grandma._ ’

‘ _Well-spotted, but I can_ _’t see what else we’re supposed to do right at the moment. Sometimes tower instructions really are that vague, and you still have to do what the monsters and bosses tell you to. What concerns me is that it hasn’t said anything to us all this time. It’s rather a long game, which one expects with a tower floor, but it appears it’s only going to talk to us once. I don’t like that much. I think tomorrow, you ought to voice some of these concerns to Ryhad, see what the two of you can find. And…if you can, talk to one of the underground people and find out what’s going on with the festival. Ask what banana wine is, where they get it._ ’

‘ _Is that going to be important?_ ’

‘ _Possibly._ ’

Caïn left it there, and went back to licking himself clean. Hours passed: when it was time, Ren gently shook Ryhad awake and said they should go. On the way back up the valley, he talked about what Caïn had asked him to: he said he was worried about the long stretches of time, that it wasn’t like the tower, that they probably ought to ask about the festival.

“You were the one who said it had nothing to do with us,” Ryhad commented with an air of criticism. “What made you change your mind?”

“Three hours alone in a cave.”

“You probably ought to learn to reflect in less specific circumstances. I think we should find today’s item and then ask around the town. Can you act subtle, do you think?”

Too used to Caïn’s neutral, non-judgemental remarks, Ren almost answered honestly, and then he realised he was being made fun of, or teased. He wrinkled his nose in Ryhad’s direction. “I can _try_.”

“Let me do the talking unless absolutely necessary, then.”

The tank had, yet again, moved. The mermaid looked bored, and barely even looked at them once she’d realised Caïn wasn’t going to come over to her to play.

“You need to get some Midsummer Fireflies,” she said, flicking her tail idly. “Just collect a few, okay? Shoo now.”

Rather than bother with searching for themselves, Ryhad tracked Jewen: following his trail, they walked further up the valley, and further still. Apparently he was quite a way away, down over the countryside compartmentalised like brightly-coloured tiles on a mosaic, and on they walked, under the incessantly bright sun.

“How are we even supposed to collect fireflies?” Ren wondered aloud. “Should we have picked up a jar or— …oh, actually I got that jar from the first floor. I guess we can use that.”

“A prop?”

“Yeah, but it’s Rubbish quality,” Ren said dismissively, patting the bottom of his backpack to make sure it was indeed still there. “It’ll be more useful like this.”

“If you think so.”

It was all pleasingly pastoral. They passed sunny meadow after sunny meadow, the sound of waves crashing growing dimmer and dimmer until it couldn’t be heard over the too-perfect birdcall. Insects buzzed, but never bothered them; spores and dust floated in the air, and for some time everything was peaceful. There came a sound like burning: a distant crackling, and Ren assumed someone must be making a bonfire. It seemed terrible weather for one, but he wasn’t about to interfere with the underground world’s business. They rounded a corner on a sandy country path and the smoke came into view: it whipped about in the wind, fading into a bright blue sky.

Ryhad was frowning. He’d begun to walk faster, heading towards the place where the fire was.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s with the fire,” was all he said before he started to run.

It was hilly land: they had to run down into another dip in the land before they heard the screams rising above the sound of the fire. These were not human screams: they were small, tinny things, barely more than the chirps of crickets, but they were no less agonising for it. Following the sound of them, they came into a wide, flat plain, and Ren had to put a hand to shield his eyes from the ash coming off the fire. He couldn’t quite see, but in the middle of it, there seemed to be a kind of net; around it, spores were eaten up by the heat and sparks, smoke rose in clouds, and the screaming never stopped. Watching all of this was the other team. They turned when they heard Ren’s team coming: the woman’s face was flushed from the fire, but she was expressionless; the other man looked guilty; Jewen looked satisfied. He began to walk towards them, and the other two followed.

“That wasn’t very environmentally-responsible of us,” he said, glancing at Ren. “Looks like we burnt them all.”

The net had been full of fireflies. Ren didn’t need to be a genius to work that out: it was written on everyone’s faces.

The other team passed them by, and Jewen said, a little louder, “Don’t be angry. Not all of us have tracking abilities. We had to get an edge somehow: we’re just trying to even out the playing field.”

The three of them left back up the path. The man who was not Jewen cast an apologetic look back at Ren, but hurried to catch the other two up, carrying a small container that almost definitely held a number of fireflies. The rest had long since burnt, except for those that screamed.

Ren watched the fire. He was trying to think, but didn’t know what to do: possibly, there were other fireflies in other places, and they could just catch those. That was possible, right? It was stupid to think that the only Midsummer Fireflies had been here. The other team had only had half an hour on them, and they’d had to search for this place themselves. Even if they’d used an ability, they couldn’t have been that thorough. Right? It was fine. He turned to Ryhad, to see what he thought, and there the words left him. Everything he could have said withered up and died in his throat, because there was a look of such ugly fury on Ryhad’s face that he almost didn’t recognise him.

“…Ryhad, are you—”

“I’m going to kill them.”

It wasn’t said as a threat: it was as if he’d decided, and was merely putting his decision out into the world. His knuckles were white as he got out a collection of pearly stones: Ren was trying to work out what they were when Caïn said urgently, ‘ _Tooth Fairy_ _’s Molars. Those things are horrible: I wouldn’t let him use them if I were you._ ’

Ryhad was already turning to follow the other team: before he could get anywhere, Ren grabbed onto his shirt and dug his heels into the earth, saying, “Don’t! It doesn’t matter! We can just find fireflies somewhere else, right? The tower hasn’t said we’ve lost yet: it’s fine!”

His hands were forcibly ripped away, and he had to take a step back, nursing the wrist Ryhad had twisted too hard. But Ryhad wasn’t walking anymore, which was an improvement. Ren didn’t know what to do. He thought about getting Divine Retribution out, or the Spider’s Silk again, to keep him in place, but they were companions: he didn’t really want to have to resort to those methods.

Fluffy white clouds floated through a crystalline blue sky. Underneath it, Ryhad’s expression was warped in anger, his eyes reflecting the fire still burning a few metres from them. “They sabotaged us,” he said. “I’ll kill them and take their fireflies. Surely even you can see this makes sense.”

“But they weren’t wrong: your ability gives us an unfair advantage, so—”

“You think this is about what’s fair?” He took a step closer, the white stones still clenched tightly in his fist. “Get this into your head, because you’ve apparently managed to make it this far without realising: fairness doesn’t matter. We had an advantage and I intended to keep it. If they’ve evened out the playing field, I’ll break it, if that means we come out on top again. I don’t know what games you’ve been lucky enough to play so far, but if you think any other kind of attitude is going to let you survive, you’re wrong.”

That wasn’t the way Ren wanted to play. Fairness mattered in the games: he knew it did, and was about to say so when Caïn reminded him, ‘ _The tower itself is fair. The players don_ _’t have to be fair to each other. He’s not wrong, you know, just…a bit hot-headed right now._ ’

“I’m going,” Ryhad said, turning again. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to see it.”

“You’ll just die, you idiot! There are three of them!”

That had not been the right thing to say, Ren realised right after he’d said it. He was hit by a glare that drowned him under its pressure for a bare half-second, then Ryhad was leaving, and he had to jog to catch up.

“You can’t kill them! We can still do this, I’m serious! There’ll be other fireflies somewhere: there _has_ to be some way for us to win, or the tower would have disqualified us already! You don’t have to do this!”

Nothing was working. He ran after Ryhad, trying to persuade him to let it go, telling him they were wasting time they could be spending on finding more fireflies, telling him there was a better way, and it was like shouting at a brick wall. The fire was far behind them by the time he stopped, clenched his fists, and shouted, “If you kill them now, I’m not working with you anymore! I won’t be on the same team as you anymore!”

He didn’t honestly expect it to have any effect: he was just telling the truth. But Ryhad stopped, and turned, and looked at him with contempt he felt in his gut.

“People kill each other now,” Ryhad said. “Get used to it.”

“You don’t _have_ to! They haven’t attacked you and we’re not about to lose if we don’t kill them! I don’t mind if you kill people when you have to, but right now you don’t!”

There was a long silence. It stretched out between them, tightened by tension, and it had become almost unbearable by the time it snapped.

“That kind of thinking will get you killed,” Ryhad said, coldly.

“I’m still alive now, though. I could have killed you in Grandma’s forest and I didn’t, and I’m still alive.”

Ryhad looked at him. There was nothing encouraging in his expression — there was nothing at all but hard, closed anger. After a few more moments, he closed his eyes, exhaled, and opened them.

“You couldn’t have killed me,” he said, walking back to Ren. “And god forbid you ever meet someone more inclined to kill you than I am.”

 

 

They searched the entire countryside for fireflies, but none had escaped the fire. Ren managed to keep up a façade of optimism because it was what was needed and also he didn’t want to get shouted at again; Ryhad’s mood did not improve, but did not worsen either. It stayed simmering under the surface of stony irritation. There was the fear that the tower would announce their failure at any second, but it never did. Hours went by, and when it was time to ask about the next day’s item, they went back to Happy Seaside Town and found the mermaid, who seemed completely indifferent to their lateness.

“Have we failed?” Ren asked, to get it out of the way.

The mermaid turned empty eyes on him. “I guess not. There’s always the chance the other team won’t find this item. And there’s the fifth day, too. So work hard, okay? I need to get out of here,” she said, showing the first spark of emotion he’d seen from her in days: she looked wistful. “I need to go and find my Snegurochka.”

“I thought it was Snegurka?”

‘ _It_ _’s the diminutive form_ ,’ Caïn explained while the mermaid ignored him.

Ryhad gave no indication he cared about any of what had just been discussed. “What’s today’s item?”

“Oh, that. I need an underground apple cut by a monster-forged knife. Any kind of cutting will do, but I like it when the slices are cut like little bunnies. I like small animals,” she said, looking down at Caïn, who blinked at her cutely. “If you give me your doggie, I can ask the tower to let you pass immediately…?”

Ren blinked. She didn’t seem to be joking. To stay on the safe side, he asked, ‘ _Obviously I_ _’m not going to do give you to her but does that sound, like…possible?_ ’

‘ _Probably not. Anyway, I don_ _’t like water much: I’d rather not go with her, and I’d rather not leave you._ ’

“I’m not…I’m not going to give you my fox.”

“Oh, okay.”

She didn’t put up any more of a protest. Suddenly worried that Ryhad might have wanted him to at least consider the option, Ren looked up, but the older man seemed to be thinking. Without looking over, he said, “Go and steal an apple. Try not to get caught, and be back at the cave in an hour. I’ll take care of the knife and the thing we talked about on the way up.”

And he left. Ren watched him go, biting his lip. ‘ _He_ _’s not going to go and kill them after all, is he? Should I follow him?_ ’

‘ _Spare yourself the headache. I doubt he_ _’d do that after you made your position so clear. Shall we go? Let’s find some apples._ ’

That did indeed seem the best way forward: Ren was about to leave the square too when he heard a sigh from behind him. The mermaid was looking down the road Ryhad had just taken.

“What an awful personality,” she said. “Where I come from, we eat men like that.”

Ren decided not to reply.

The town was teeming today. The banana wine festival seemed to be kicking off well, though Ren hadn’t seen any trace of bananas or wine yet. It was mostly just a lot of people, and he walked through them with Caïn at his heels, constantly worried that someone was going to realise (or start to care) that he was human. Sunny streets held more tiny shops than he could have imagined, but from what he could see through their little glass windows, none of them sold anything very interesting or apple-shaped. He walked all the way to the other side of town, slipping through the crowd with their wide sun hats (with ear-holes cut out for monsters who needed them), their sunglasses in a variety of shapes and sizes, and their ice creams that gave off heady, alcoholic fumes he’d have associated with chloroform before ice cream. Only on the edge of town did he find a shop that seemed to sell fruit. The shopkeeper was an underground person, perfectly normal-looking, and she talked to him while he looked at apples. She told him other young people had been round to buy apples from her, that she was delighted the youth were taking such an interest in their health. She told him which apples tasted the best, and when he said he didn’t know what money they used around here (at Caïn’s prompt, he said he was just in town for the festival) she laughed and said she’d give him one on the house, if he was that hungry. She seemed nice: Ren was surprised. Encouraged, he asked what the history of the festival was, and how they made banana wine here: she seemed happy to sit down and tell him how the town had this festival every year to thank the tower for their prosperity. They imported tonnes of bananas every time, she said, smiling. As a grocer, she liked the boom in trade.

Caïn was quiet as they went back to the cave. He wasn’t normally chatty, so Ren didn’t think anything of it as he picked his away across the packed beach. Waves lapped at the shore, seagulls cried prettily, and nothing seemed out of order. It was an idyll.

When they were back in the cave, Caïn said, ‘ _I didn_ _’t think you were going to, but don’t eat that apple. I really did not trust her._ ’

It was a fundamental understanding of Ren’s that Caïn was better at judging this sort of thing than him: since the woman hadn’t been human, he didn’t protest, and only asked, ‘ _Why didn_ _’t you trust her?_ ’

‘ _That_ _’s not what underground people are like. Let’s just wait to see what Ryhad found out._ ’

They didn’t have to wait long. After a few minutes of practising juggling with the apple, Ryhad came in.

“You got it, then.”

“Yeah. Did you get the knife?”

He held it out, and Ren took it. It looked like a normal-enough knife, and he tapped it.

 

[Prop: Lacquered Knife]

[Owner: Ryhad Dalisirene (official player)]

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 1]

[Attack: Good.]

[Function: It is a knife. Can be used for cutting. Governed by the causality principle: will necessarily be able to cut any fruit or vegetable set before it.]

[Restrictions: Not applicable.]

[Remarks: It’s a bit small to carry around in a jealousy-fuelled murderous rage, but don’t let that stop you.]

 

Ren handed the knife back; Ryhad had sat down across the cave and they looked at each other. There was the sense that something needed to be said, but Ren wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. In the end, he just blurted out, “This all feels really convenient.”

“I thought so too. I can’t see why, but it is. This knife was in the first place I looked, and no one questioned my taking it.”

“The shopkeeper basically gave me the apple,” Ren said, looking down at the offending fruit. “I asked about the festival — don’t look at me like that! I did it subtly! — and she said it’s basically just a normal festival. It’s to thank the tower or something.”

“I heard the same thing.” He frowned: it seemed his face was made for frowning, it fit so well. “Something’s wrong but I don’t know what. Or I don’t know what else we’re supposed to be doing here.”

Something dripped, further inside the cave. It was cold: there was enough light to see by, but not enough for warmth, and the thick stone walls cut off the sounds from outside. Ren tried to go over everything that had happened in the game, tried to see something they’d missed, but there was too much: they could have missed any number of things. They ought to cut the apple and go to see the mermaid, but both of them were clearly reluctant to do anything when this might be their last chance to right what they’d been doing wrong.

It was in this stasis that Caïn spoke up. ‘ _Ren._ ’

‘ _What_ _’s up?_ ’

‘ _Do exactly as I say, alright?_ ’

Ren paused. ‘ _Okay._ ’

‘ _Bite your lip and look down. Don_ _’t react to anything I’m about to say. Don’t let him know I’m talking to you: just don’t react._ ’

Ren did as he was told.

‘ _The festival isn_ _’t fine_ ,’ Caïn said gently. ‘ _The underground people were lying to you. Tell him that you overheard what I_ _’m about to tell you. I know you just told him you didn’t hear anything but try to brush it off by saying you thought this was all a joke but now think it might make sense. I didn’t tell you because you needed to hear it from a place he could understand, but it’s looking like there’s no other choice. Banana wine isn’t wine made from bananas. It is the mulled blood of humans. They call it banana wine because the limbs that float in banana wine vats are curved, like bananas. I believe that’s what’s going to happen to the losing team._ ’

For a moment, Ren forgot to breathe. He didn’t entirely know how to process such a grotesque idea.

‘ _Now tell him. Please make it believable._ ’

Swallowing hard, Ren looked up, and saw he was being watched. He swallowed again, just for good measure. “I did,” he said, and had to start again, to make sure he got it right. “I did overhear something. I thought…I mean, I thought it was a joke, but someone was saying that banana wine is made from humans.”

Ryhad looked at him. “Why would it then be called banana wine?”

“It’s because it’s human blood, and like…arms and stuff float in it, and they’re curved, like bananas…”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, but…doesn’t it kind of make sense if we assume everyone’s been lying to us and setting us useless tasks to waste time until the festival so they can make us into wine?”

It did, and they both knew it. The mermaid had never been interested in the tasks, the tasks themselves had never been difficult, the underground people had never been threats, the tower had never mentioned any real rules except the time limit.

There had been so many things to miss in this game, and they had missed far too many of them.

“We were supposed to use the free time to work out what the actual solution was,” Ryhad said. He was looking at nothing in particular, turning the knife over and over in his hand. “We didn’t. The festival is tomorrow. We can’t beat the entire town, not a fucking chance.” The knife dropped, clattering on rock. “There’s no time to find a better way. Doing what the mermaid says isn’t guaranteed to help us do anything more than waste time. We’re trapped. We fucked up and we’re trapped.”

“But the tower…the tower hasn’t said we’ve failed yet, right? So we’ve still got a chance, right?”

“Why are you acting as if the tower cares about us?!”

The shout came like a slap in the face, it was so sudden: he’d turned to look at Ren now, eyes blazing. “So what if it hasn’t called the end of the game?” he demanded. “Haven’t you ever seen someone die in one of these games before? It doesn’t announce every single failure: it lets them happen, just like it’s going to let us die at the hands of these freaks! Why the _fuck_ do you have to act like the world is fair?! It’s not! It never was and it isn’t now: we’re trapped and we realised too late and now we get to die for it!”

“Stop yelling at me!”

Their voices echoed around the cave and Ren hated it: he’d made a movement to get up, but hadn’t got all the way. He felt frozen in place: he _hated_ being shouted at, it made all his muscles tense up and turn to stone.

“Stop yelling at me,” he said again, pleading. “It’s not my fault, and anyway, it’s not over yet!”

“Yes, it is! Do you have any idea how annoying it is to see you delude yourself like this? Face reality for once!”

“But it’s not fair!”

Anger was rigid in the lines of Ryhad’s body: that outburst had only made it all worse, and he seemed about to move, to shout more, but before he could, Ren said, “It has to be fair because that’s what the tower’s _about_. We weren’t told the rules and the entire world here wants to kill us: that’s not fair! We’re at way too much of a disadvantage to win! There’s got to be something we can use or this doesn’t make any sense!”

For a few, heavy seconds, Ryhad watched him with no sign of calming down; then, he seemed to relax, slightly. His expression didn’t change, but he looked away.

“If the knitting needles didn’t break the tank, your chains won’t,” he said in a significantly quieter voice than before, but it was no less stiff. “It’s unbreakable. Do we have to unscrew it? But it’s just sheets of glass, and none of the edges showed signs of damage after I hit it. The Mermaid Princess hasn’t told us anything except that she wants those items so that we’re kept busy. If we had access to Snegurka, maybe that would be something, but we don’t. None of the underground people or monsters seem likely to help. It has to be something focused on us. There are too many variables now; we might already have missed the safe period. If the other team have figured it out, I really will kill them.”

Warily, Ren watched him think aloud. For his part, he had nothing to add. He wasn’t sure he could think right now. In lieu of that, he asked Caïn: ‘ _Have you thought of anything?_ ’

‘ _I have._ ’

He almost jumped. ‘ _You have?! What?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’m waiting for him to work it out. It’s less suspicious that way. If he doesn’t, I’ll tell you._ ’ There was time for Ren to feel the warm relief of having a safety net in place again, and then Caïn said, ‘ _Oh, I won_ _’t even have to tell you: look, he’s got there._ ’

Ren looked over, but couldn’t see anything of particular note. Ryhad was still deep in apparent thought: the only thing that had changed was that he had picked up the knife and was turning it over pensively.

 

 

In the end, it came down to luck. That didn’t sit well with Ren, but as Caïn reasoned, if there was a proper way to clear the floor, they hadn’t found it, and they didn’t have the time to. They had nothing left but luck.

To give off the impression that they were still playing along, Ryhad went to deliver the apple to the mermaid later that ‘day’, and then they had nothing to do but wait and hope. The hours didn’t pass quickly, but they did pass. When it was time, they left the cave and walked up the beach, but they didn’t have to go much further than that: the Mermaid Princess’ tank was in the main square today. All of the underground people were doing an excellent job at pretending they didn’t see her or the other team waiting next to the tank. The sun was as bright as ever, but Ren felt cold: he couldn’t help holding his arms in an effort to not shiver at the thought of what everyone was planning. He could still hardly believe it: it didn’t feel real. This was just a seaside town, and this was just a weird festival.

He stuck close to Ryhad, because at least he looked like he knew what he was doing.

“You’re late,” the mermaid said when they came up to the tank. “You’ve got to show effort, okay? I need to get out. Don’t bother about the others: they can’t hear you. They’re all dumb tourists. There’s one last thing to do now.”

Ren looked down at his feet. He knew it looked suspicious, but he couldn’t bring himself to face the other team.

“I need you to go into that inn, okay?” the mermaid said very seriously. “There’s a 100-Year Ale in there and I need a pint of that. It’s hidden in the cellars,” she added, as if she’d realised that it would take exactly no time to fetch a pint of ale.

The other team were about to go for it: they only stopped when they realised that Ren’s team weren’t moving.

“Can I try something first?” Ryhad asked, with no indication he had any intention of being denied this. The mermaid looked at him and nodded.

“I don’t mind.”

It was all luck. The rationale was that if the tank was unbreakable, there was likely a reason behind that. Normal tanks didn’t withstand the kind of attack it had without any kind of visible damage. Ryhad hadn’t realised (and Caïn hadn’t remembered) why that might be, until the knife had shown up. It was governed by the causality principle: this was a principle that could be applied to props, so was it far-fetched to suggest the tank might be governed by it too? The game was to help the Mermaid Princess escape. There was no fun to that if the tank could be broken.

What if there was a principle cast on it that would necessarily prevent it from breaking? And what if they had a prop that could undo that principle?

As agreed, they brought out the Witch’s Jawbreakers they’d got in the last game. The prop instructions were vague: guessing at it, they put them together, touched the tank, and something happened. It wasn’t ostentatious: it was a ripple, or less than that — a mere shift in the air. Without wasting a second, Ryhad drew one of the knitting needles and drove it into the tank. There was a sickening crack, and the fracture spread out, eating up the glass. When he pulled it out, the tank collapsed and shattered in a flood of water.

All voices trailed off. The underground people near the tank froze. Everyone was watching.

The mermaid lay on the bottom of the tank, blinking up at them, her tail flapping: one, two flaps was all she got in before the underground people began to move. There was a mad dash for the humans, a frantic group effort to hold them down, and if he’d had any sense Ren would have just let them do it and believed that the tower would get him out, but he’d thought of something.

“Ding dong!” the tower sang, and he was already trying to run for the other team.

“They’re in the same team as us!” he cried, and heard Ryhad shouting his name. “They passed too!”

That was all he got out before the black tower stepped in, and after that, everything happened very quickly. Someone caught the back of his collar, dragging him back as his vision began to go white. He tried: he tried the only thing he could think of, but underground people were crowding around him, tugging him in every direction, and he was being transported back to the real world. He felt it had never taken this long before. The image of the other team — manhandled and bound down by underground people; struggling, unable to fight the hordes, able only to look back at him in horror — burnt itself into his eyes.

In reality, it couldn’t have taken more than two seconds. Then, the bright, sunny town had been replaced by the drab greys of a city at twilight, and he was staring out at a main square in Krakow.

“The Mermaid Princess has been freed,” the tower said cheerfully. At 19:43 on December 4th, 2017, Europe District 21 official players Ren Delacroix and Ryhad Dalisirene have successively cleared the second floor and won the reward ‘Whisper of the Sea’.”

Ryhad let go of Ren’s collar and he slumped to the ground. He felt like he didn’t remember quite how to breathe, it had all been so fast. There was no one around: he stared at the buildings across from him, and tried to think of ways he could have saved the other team. Winter wind blew around him, and gooseflesh erupted across his arms

“I’m sorry.”

Ren looked around, unsure why he was being apologised to.

“I know you wanted to help them, but I was worried that if you did manage to get the tower to acknowledge their being on the same team as you, that would put you in the losing team, rather than them in the winning one. There wasn’t enough time to think. There was nothing you could have done, either.” He paused. The shadow of the tower covered him, almost hiding the exhaustion. “I’m sorry for shouting at you in the game, too. You didn’t deserve that.”

“That’s okay.”

Ren was expecting something else: a warning to not do anything like that again, or an insult or two for being enough of an idiot to try. Instead, he got a mild, “We ought to get out of the open. Come on.”

There seemed to be an attempt on Ryhad’s part to help him to his feet, but it was awkward, and he could get to his feet by himself, anyway. They began to walk. He still didn’t feel good.

‘ _For your own sake, I think it would be better not to assume you can save everyone._ ’

‘ _I just wanted to try._ ’

‘ _I know._ ’

‘ _I wish I could have told them I_ _’m sorry._ ’

Caïn walked by his feet, claws making small tap-taps on the stone. They came out from under the tower’s shadow, and a wave of frustration ran through Ren’s entire body.

‘ _It_ _’s not fair. They didn’t know either. It’s only luck that we had that prop._ ’

‘ _Luck is a kind of strength, too._ ’

Ren almost looked down at him in bewilderment, but managed to catch himself. ‘ _No it_ _’s not. Luck is just luck._ ’

‘ _It could be a type of strength, if you want to look at it that way,_ ’ Caïn insisted calmly. ‘ _At least 90% of why you_ _’re so strong is pure luck. You were lucky that you met the moon god and were blessed, lucky that I found you, lucky that you teamed up with someone who wants you alive. As opposed to just not wanting you dead, I mean._ _He didn_ _’t have to drag you out of that floor with him, but he did, at potential personal risk. You met someone who would do that for you, when it could very easily have gone sour given how, from the second you met, you’ve told him essentially everything you ought to keep secret. I think that’s luck. Don’t you? Everything that’s propping you up now is because of luck. Not to downplay your own achievements of course, but being lucky isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the only thing that decides who wins a game._ ’

Ren didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Brushing his thumb over the shell that had appeared in his pocket after leaving the floor, he jogged a little to catch Ryhad up, and they walked into the city.

 

 

The black tower’s announcement, slightly amended for global listening, echoed across the world. There was a frisson of disquiet: a mere fortnight after the first floor had been cleared, here was the second one.

 

Chongqing, China.

Two women looked at each other in shock. That shock wove silence around them, and it cracked when Einierre grinned. It was infectious: Vike smiled too, and as relief shook through her, she began to laugh just to get the emotions out. Before she’d recovered, her girlfriend leapt at her and hugged her tightly, and moved back just far enough for them to look at each other.

“We’ve got to get back to Europe,” she said. “I have no idea who that other guy is, do you? But we’ve got to go back.”

“What about Huai Yue?” Vike asked, looking into her girlfriend’s eyes. “We said we’d meet her in a week.”

“Fuck her. I mean, I love the girl, but she’ll be fine without us. You know who won’t be fine? Ren. God, I hope he found someone to look after him.”

“It’s so far, though! It’ll take forever. And can we even go all the way by car?” Vike, a slave to details, began to wonder aloud. “I guess we can drive, but aren’t there a lot of mountains? And I thought the China-Kazakhstan border was closed? There might not be any guards anymore, but what if there’s barbed wire or something? And it’s so _far_ , but we also can’t very well _not_ go, that just wouldn’t be right.”

“It wouldn’t,” Einierre agreed, kissing Vike quickly. “But really, can you think of anyone else you’d rather go on a stupidly long road trip with?”

Caught up in the relieved delight of it all, Vike shook her head and laughed again. Her whole body felt light.

 

Athens, Greece.

A man sat up on the bed that filled up most of the hotel room he was staying in. It squeaked under his weight; it squeaked louder as he turned around to smile at the young girl who had just been woken up by the tower.

“Well, how about that,” he said, reaching over to fix her incorrigibly messy hair. “Guess we’d better hurry up and do the second floor tomorrow after all. Then Poland. Feel like going to Poland?”

The girl shook her head fiercely, and he laughed.

“I figured. Get some sleep, Cade.” Affectionately, he stroked her cheek, and turned away, back to the window.

The moon was bright in the sky, only slightly chipped by the tip of the black tower that cut part of it from view. For a long time, he watched it. The small flicks of his tail were the only outward signs of the frustration bubbling inside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jiirva: [nails dug so hard into their skin that they're bleeding] if That Man shouts at him one more time i'll show him the true meaning of divine retribution  
> hosgard, bedecked in sun-hat/sunglasses/swimming trunks, looking over from his deck chair: are you still on about that? come and have a drink. mirenwe's making personalised cocktails


	10. WHAT'S the deal with airplane toothpaste

By all accounts, Krakow was a lovely city. Even without electricity or a working social system, it had some very pretty architecture and parks; regrettably, it was also home to a rather large group of stowaways who viewed any player powerful enough to pose a threat as something to be ganged up on and killed.

Those stowaways were almost certainly behind the group that had driven Ren and the others into the second floor, Foryn said. She was Ryhad’s cousin: a tall, sombre woman with black hair pulled tightly behind her head, rarely seen without a metal pipe hanging from her belt. She was an official player and part of the scattered ‘resistance’ that wandered the city and occasionally teamed up to challenge the stowaway group, if it became necessary. Her partner, Erlen, was part of the resistance too, but played less of an active role. She was a reserve, but this wouldn’t have stopped her fighting if she’d been able. Unfortunately, she was also three months pregnant.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world,” she said philosophically one day, while taking Ren out to find more clothes. “If the baby does make it — and we really must be practical and prepare for the possibility it doesn’t, so don’t look at me like that — it might be an official player by grace of being born in the games. Maybe I’ll be able to use its ability in the last trimester. Wouldn’t that be droll?”

She was Polish, but spoke French with a vocabulary that might be expected from one who had a PhD in classical French literature. She was talkative, and this was a help, given how neither of the two cousins seemed to understand the perks of conversation (in Erlen’s words, “They’re cousins, but they both prefer me because I’m a delight to be around”). She was also the one who asked both Ren and Ryhad to stay for a few days, in order to launch a concerted effort against the stowaway group.

Ren didn’t mind. According to Foryn, they had indeed been the first to clear the second floor, so that was his ticking clock dealt with. Hopefully Vike knew he was fine now, so he could relax a bit. It was a welcome break after days of travelling interspersed with fighting for his life. This also involved fighting for his life, but this fighting for his life had less of the element of surprise than tower-game-based fighting for his life did, and that made for a nice change. More to the point, he got to settle down for a little while. Erlen was a woman of culture and helped him find a clean-enough lake to bathe in; they restocked clothes and food and water, not that eating or drinking was as vital as it had once been; they checked the props the second floor had afforded them.

 

[Prop: Whisper of the Sea]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: Whisper a secret to the shell and the shell will tell you if anybody is lying to you/has lied to you in the past hour.]

[Restrictions: Can only be used once a day.]

[Remarks: The juicier the secret, the more accurate the information.]

 

It seemed a little weak for what they’d gone through, but Caïn reasoned that it would no doubt come in useful. If Ren wanted better props (and, more importantly, offensive props) he had only to defeat the stowaways and take theirs.

So that was what he and the others did.  And, somehow, a few days turned into twenty. These things happened.

 

 

December 23rd.

Ren sprinted through the streets of Krakow, following Foryn’s lead. It wasn’t normally how he’d have chosen to spend his Christmas Eve-eve, and he didn’t like running behind people slower than him, but he didn’t really have a choice this time: if he took a wrong turn, he’d be wide open to the men who were fast on their heels. The day before, they’d managed to pick off the leader of the stowaway group — now, his second-in-command wanted revenge.

There weren’t many of them left: Ren was going to take comfort in that. It’d probably all be over today. In an hour, maybe. That’d be nice: he was tired of all the hostilities, and was itching to move on from Poland. To make it to that, he just had to follow the rushed plan Foryn had barked at him as they’d begun to run from the ambush ten minutes ago.

Sweat chilled his skin in the biting wind; he was breathing through his mouth and the air was harsh in his throat. The impact of his feet on the road was too heavy, too hard, because he’d made the mistake of choosing shoes that weren’t exactly built for running, but the all-too close noise of men following him was enough to keep him going as fast as he knew he could sustain. Neither of the men had used any long-range abilities or props yet. There had been three of them originally, but Ren had used a prop he’d got from a different fight — the charmingly-named King Snail’s Slime — and that had taken care of that. Now there were only two of them, it was about time to split up so Foryn could use her ability, but she hadn’t called for it yet, so they kept running, their footsteps echoing around the empty streets.

They were just coming up to an intersection strewn with abandoned cars when Foryn yelled, “Go left!”

He did. He heard one of the men follow him; about three seconds later he heard the tell-tale cracks of Foryn’s ability activating. That was that one taken care of, then. He kept running, aiming for the plaza Foryn had recommended. It wasn’t far: within two minutes they’d reached it, and he sped up, trying to put distance between him and the pursuer. When he was on the other side of the plaza, he whirled around and threw a small hand mirror to the ground, shouting the activation words only because he had to: “Don’t lose your head!”

The stowaway was halfway across the plaza when it activated. It was an illusion prop, another he’d got from the stowaway group: once the mirror had cracked, an opponent’s vision would split into a thousand pieces for one minute. That was more than enough time to tie up the stowaway and wait for someone else to come and finish him off. It wasn’t the most honourable way of going about things, but Ren staunchly refused to kill anyone himself, and if he’d had his way they’d have let all the stowaways go with stern warnings and a bit of a beating up. Needless to say, he had not had his way. You got used to it.

Vision shattered, the stowaway was faltering, jerking this way and that like a wounded animal lashing out at its attacker. Ren had already moved silently from the space he’d just been, and — breathing as shallowly and quietly as he could — he approached the stowaway. There was a scream from a few streets away: he had no idea who that was but figured there was no point in thinking about it just now. Bringing out the Spider’s Silk, he stepped closer, ready to fling it over the stowaway; it was when he was a metre away that the stowaway lunged for him. His instincts were fast now, but not fast enough to avoid the attack: he covered his eyes from the ensuing explosion, but white-hot pain shot through his arms and torso, pushing him back against the ground. He grimaced at the impact, grimaced at the pain that ripped through his arms when he put his hands back against the bricks to brace himself. He wasted time. He got Divine Retribution out (the chains burned as they exited his skin; he couldn’t bring himself to look down to see the damage that had been inflicted on his forearms), but by that time the stowaway was already upon him, and he couldn’t avoid the punch that was thrown at his face. It overbalanced him and would have driven his cheek into the ground if he hadn’t resisted it. Tasting blood, he looked up desperately, in time to see the stowaway ready the same explosion he’d just used.

There was something wrong with Ren’s left eye. Vision there was swimming, but his right eye saw everything perfectly. He saw the spark on the stowaway’s palm, the ugly determination carved onto his face; he saw, with startling clarity, the space where he could use Divine Retribution to kill this man. His chest was wide open: faster than the stowaway could throw his explosion, Ren could shoot the chains right through his heart. It was his moment for the taking, and he didn’t take it. He hoped, briefly, that it would be painless this time.

The world erupted into red.

It took Ren a moment to realise he wasn’t dead, or revived. He couldn’t be: his arms still burned with cuts and ripped flesh, and those should have healed, if he’d revived. He was covered with blood and it wasn’t his. Trying not to look at his forearm, he wiped the blood from his face and lowered his eyes to the body of the stowaway lying on top of him. The head was pierced through, a clean cut through the temple and out the back, but it had been ripped up through the top of the skull. It was nothing like what a head should look like: Ren had enough time to think that, numbly, before the body was hauled off him and dropped to the side.

He felt blank: he looked up to see Ryhad glaring at him.

“Don’t rely on your ability like this,” Ryhad said. He sheathed one of the knitting needles; the other was still dripping blood onto the stone. “That was you or him: no one could have condemned you for killing him in self-defence.”

“I know that,” he said, feeling like he was just now beginning to work again. “I know, but…”

“You knew he was going to be killed anyway. Are you such a hypocrite that you won’t kill anyone yourself, fully aware that we’ll do it for you?”

Ren shot a look at him, hoping some of the acid pierced his stony façade. “That’s not it! I just…I just don’t want to.”

It was midwinter, and freezing. For all that their bodies had changed since the earth had gone online, now the adrenaline had worn off, it was undeniably too cold to hang around watching each other. Sighing, Ryhad reached out a hand to help him up and said, “…in every other situation, I’ll do it for you. But when it’s like this, you need to get used to defending yourself properly.”

Ren made a concerted effort to not look at the body; they began to walk. “But it’s not like I needed to: I can just die, and then—”

“That’s a temporary fix and you know it.” There was a pause as they left the plaza, heading back to Erlen and Foryn’s house. “Do you like dying?”

He could easily have lied to save face. On the surface, there was nothing all that terrible about it. It hurt, but many things hurt. His arms hurt like hell right now: quick, fearful looks down at them found that the explosion had ripped up the skin pretty badly, and the flesh in parts. If he’d died, they’d have healed and he wouldn’t have had to deal with this. The recuperation period after reviving was also conveniently short. It was a maddeningly powerful ability, and many would have killed to have it: apart from an assumed daily limit (Caïn insisted on this, saying that even with the moon god’s blessing, an ability like this without a limit was unthinkable), there were no downsides. And even then, while he did possibly rely on it a little much, having died four times since they’d cleared the second floor, he’d never died more than twice in one day, and obviously no limit had been triggered: it wasn’t as if he was inconvenienced by it. The ability was a godsend. And yet.

Looking down at his feet, he shook his head. “No.”

“Let’s avoid it, then.”

When they got back to the apartment, Erlen commented good-naturedly on his wounds and pulled him into the admirably well-stocked infirmary they kept in the bathroom. While she was wrapping him up (not that something like this would take longer than a day or two to heal fully, now), she asked him if he’d gained any new props (no: he hadn’t thought to check), remarked on how Caïn (now at his feet) had seemed to pine for him while he was gone, and told him that Foryn had finished off the other stowaways. Some of the stowaway group had left for a different city, but Erlen was of the opinion that that was that city’s problem and not hers. As far as she was concerned, the biggest obstacle to their continued happiness had been lifted and she was very grateful.

“After all, I couldn’t very well be much help, could I? And Foryn, bless her heart, doesn’t like many of the other powerful players in the city, so we’ve mostly been alone. I will work on her and make her understand that I positively require her to at least tolerate the company of people who aren’t me or relatives, but she doesn’t trust very well, you see, and none of her closest friends survived the mass disappearance, or we don’t think they have. It is a wonderful thing, that you have solid proof that your sister is well.”

Ren looked up from his arm and into her eyes. They were both sitting on the edge of the bathtub, and were very close. Her smiles always had a trace of hauteur in them, but it didn’t seem unkind. “Will you be leaving now, do you think?” she asked.

He nodded, stroking Caïn’s back with his foot. “Yeah, I’m planning to. Thanks for letting me stay so long.”

“You’ve more than repaid us, don’t worry.” The light coming in through the cloudy glass of the bathroom window was white, not a speck of sky visible through the cloud. The edges of Erlen’s hair glowed with it; she looked up from tying off the last bandage and said, “There you go. What a good thing it mostly hit your arms: it’d be a terrible pity if your pretty face scars.”

“I’ve got to say, that’s not really my top priority.”

“You can’t underestimate beauty in a post-apocalyptic world, Ren.” With that questionable statement, she got up and headed back into the main room, leaving him to clean up the first-aid kit. He’d done it before.

‘ _You know, regardless of your pretty face—_ ’

‘ _Oh, don_ _’t you start._ ’

There was a small snuffle, like a fox’s laugh. ‘ _Regardless of that, I think it_ _’s really awful luck that you haven’t come across a healing prop yet._ ’

‘ _I_ _’m not avoiding them on purpose._ ’

‘ _I_ _’d have had a little talk with you if you were_ ,’ Caïn said comfortingly. ‘ _Hopefully you_ _’ll find some soon._ ’

With the bathroom cleanish again, they went to join the other three. It was as they stepped into the other room that a familiar voice rang out, stopping everyone in their tracks.

“Ding dong!” went the tower. “Version update notification. January 1st, 2018 — the Black Tower version 2.0 will come online. Please familiarise yourselves with the new version rules as soon as possible. The new version game rules are as follows. First: reality instances are now open. Players can now participate in black tower games on Earth. Second: every player must attack the tower once every three months. Players who fail to comply will be forced to enter.

“Ding dong! The new version will be launched on January 1st, 2018. Please look forward to playing under new rules!”

No one in the room moved. The first who dared was Caïn, who stretched, yawned, and walked over to hop up onto the sofa and curl up to sleep. This was enough to bring the others back to reality.

“What the _hell_ does it mean, version 2.0?” Ren said, affronted.

“Now, now: I think this is a wonderful sign. What I’ve really been thinking all along is that the tower games could do with some modding.”

Ryhad raised his eyebrows at her. “Remind me when you last attacked the tower.”

“Oh, the first floor, probably.”

“So you’re at risk — don’t take it so lightly.”

“She’ll be fine,” Foryn said in a voice that did not permit doubt. She was on the seat opposite her cousin, currently making a clumsy attempt at the mending. With so many clothes now theirs for the taking, mending ought to have become obsolete, but Erlen had several designer outfits she didn’t feel like replacing, and would much rather wear them with awkward mending rather than rips from where she had been stabbed on multiple occasions.

Foryn didn’t much like her partner’s survival being called into question, and they dropped the subject. It was decided that since there was nothing they could actually do about the version update, they wouldn’t worry about it. Reality instances didn’t sound very pleasant, but they wouldn’t know how unpleasant until the update took effect. With that out of the way, everyone calmed down, and there was talk of bringing out a board game (monopoly was off limits because Foryn had played a monopoly-like game she had not enjoyed at all, but everything else was fine). Before they got anywhere with that, Erlen took it upon herself to ask, “Ryhad, dear, just so we know, are you going to be going off to China with Ren tomorrow?”

There wasn’t much of a room to silence, since neither Foryn nor Caïn seemed to much care, and Erlen had said it, and Ryhad himself was never that expressive. Ren reacted enough for all of them: jumping to his feet, he said, “You don’t have to ask him like that! Tact!”

“Do you not need me to come?”

He turned to blink at Ryhad, who was looking at him like nothing was amiss. “I mean… Like, we used the Witch’s Jawbreakers, and I thought you might want to stay with Foryn because she’s family, so…”

“Do you still need a driver?”

It was asked simply: if there was some hidden meaning behind the words and the confident, questioning tilt to his head, Ren couldn’t read it. He said, “I mean. Yes.”

“Then I’ll come.”

 

 

They left the next day. There was a heartfelt goodbye with the women, but it didn’t last long. Erlen asked them to not come back anytime near her expected due date, if they planned to visit again, and that was that. There was the mutual, unspoken understanding that they might never see each other again, but it didn’t seem very heavy, on a bright winter morning.

The plan was to head towards Ukraine and then on into Kazakhstan, but they doubled back along the DK7 to the airport first. This was at Ren’s request: he wanted to stockpile those little capsules of chewable toothpaste, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing them outside of airport bathrooms.

It was only half an hour’s detour. When they got there, it was deserted, but they hadn’t expected anything else: one broken door later, they made it inside and headed for the bathrooms. There were none of the little capsules on the ground floor: in the end, they had to get past the abandoned security points to find a bathroom that had them, but that was enough. Ryhad punched the machine, it broke, and they began to fill a bag they’d got from one of the shops. After a minor hesitation, Ren agree to go and raid the women’s bathroom too; when the bag was full, they began to head back through the airport.

“Is that enough for you?”

Ren had already used one of the capsules: his mouth felt minty-fresh, and he said with utter conviction, “Yes. You use one too: here.”

“Is that a hint?”

“Advice. You’re acting like someone who’s never looked up what seriously bad dental hygiene looks like.”

Ryhad took the proffered capsule. “Can’t say I’ve ever done that.”

“You’re missing out. It’ll really motivate you to brush your teeth, I’m telling you.”

“If you ever get a cavity, you can use that Tooth Fairy’s Dental Plaster you picked up,” Ryhad suggested sardonically.

“Pretty sure that’s not what you’re supposed to use it for, and also I’d die before I try to do anything to my own teeth. Oh, towels!” He darted into a shop and pulled out a stack of tourist trap towels. At the raised eyebrows he was given, he said, “If we pass a lake or something at some point, I’m going to want to get clean, right? So it’d be good to have towels on hand. Here, hold these while I go find shower gel.”

He didn’t find a respectable bottle of shower gel, but he did get a few travel-sized bottles, and picked up some deodorant while he was at it. Their bodies might be changing and might not need as much maintenance as before, but he had standards and he wanted to meet them again. As with all airports, there was a sparkly section filled with a great many perfumes, and he tried out a few on Caïn before picking up some of those too.

“Are you done yet?” Ryhad asked when he stopped in yet another shop to check if they had anything worth taking. “We only have so many arms.”

“Yeah, but there are always more bags. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

“If I’d wanted anything, I’d have got it from a proper department store before this.”

“Sorry I suck at planning,” Ren said without meaning a word of it, and hurried to follow Ryhad through the security area again. The airport wasn’t as gloomy as the department stores in Krakow had been: wide windows looked out over the surrounding land. From some angles, he could see planes left stranded on runways. As they walked down an escalator, he said pensively, “Do you think we could steal a plane?”

Ryhad looked back at him. “Do you know how to fly planes? Don’t say you’ve played a simulator or something.”

“I haven’t even done that.”

“Neither have I: I can’t see this working out.”

They were on the ground floor again, walking past rows of eerily empty check-in desks. “But isn’t it mostly automated these days anyway?”

“Do you really want to bet all our lives on that?”

It was a fair point. Ren shook his head. “I guess it’d be safer to drive, yeah.”

They couldn’t have been driving along the A4 for more than an hour before the instance caught them.

It didn’t exactly come out of nowhere: the air began to shimmer, which was enough warning for Ryhad to stop the car, but that was about all they got. The world went white, and the tower announced, “Ding dong! The group instance game ‘Cheshire Cat’s Waltz’ has been triggered. At 9:46 on December 24th, 2018, the players Ren Delacroix and Ryhad Dalisirene have safely entered the game.

“Sandbox loading…

“Data loading complete…

“Welcome to Cheshire’s Maze! What’s a poor kitty cat to do? Cheshire’s favourite prey, the Dormouse, has gone missing in the maze! Players, will you help kitty get the Dormouse back?”

Ren and Ryhad exchanged a look, shrugged, and Ren said, “We will.”

A maze opened up before them. The walls burst out of the ground with relatively little debris: they reached up six metres, easily, and were all smooth in a way that reflected the light in rainbows like spilt petrol. There was one entrance, and nowhere else to go. There was also the inescapable smell of cat.

‘ _Does this look safe?_ ’ Ren asked, just to be sure.

‘ _You_ _’ve been through more unsafe things._ ’

That was the best recommendation they were likely to get; alert and mildly on edge, the three of them walked into the maze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: how does this keep happening to them  
> jiirva: the author’s too lazy to write anything outside of the games  
> mirenwe, sighing: that’s lady erlen and foryn gone already…i wonder if nuran or lord acqen are going to show up any time soon…  
> jiirva: if that awful little man shows up before the wolf boy, I’m throwing a fit  
> hosgard: i know the answer is probably just that you want to throw a fit but why do you even care about the wolf boy  
> jiirva: he fulfils the basic need i have to see ren’s entourage filled with non-threatening men


	11. i am........just a little creacher. i must change this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore

With no apparent time limit, the first strategy they went with, courtesy of Ryhad, was to find the centre. No one really expected the Dormouse to be there, especially when, with some particularly difficult angling of Divine Retribution, Ren managed to scale the wall and crouch on top to see where the centre actually was. It was all far too easy and there was no trick to it, but the walls were thick so (trying very hard not to look down) Ren walked along them and guided the others. They hadn’t come anywhere near the centre before Ryhad said, “It’s not this way.”

Ren looked down at him, immediately regretted it, and dropped down to cling to the wall so he wouldn’t fall. “What do you mean, it’s not this way? Are you tracking it? You can track it but you made me climb this thing?!”

“I didn’t try right away because I dismissed the idea that the tower would let me track the Dormouse as stupid, but apparently it will.”

Ren bit his lip. ‘ _That_ _’s not great, is it?_ ’

‘ _Not really!_ ’

If the tower allowed them to track the Dormouse, the difficulty wasn’t in finding it. That meant it was still uncertain where the difficulty was. Ren hoped fervently that it wouldn’t be combat: he was well aware that his combat skills were woefully unpolished.

Very carefully, he got down from the wall back onto the smooth, dark stone of the ground. They began to walk again, following whatever instructions or instinct Ryhad’s ability gave him. It was a long walk, and not much happened. Walking on the wall had been more interesting. There were no monsters to fight, no creepy noises or ominous movements in the corner of Ren’s eye, no sense of impending doom. It was a boring walk through a maze that offered little in the way of entertainment. Ren didn’t want to talk aloud, in case they missed something, but eventually he asked, “Is it…I mean, is it much further?”

“I don’t know.” Ryhad was facing directly in front of him, but glanced down briefly. “My ability doesn’t show me the entire route: it just tells me where to go.”

“That doesn’t sound that useful.”

“Do I look like I’m at a disadvantage?”

“That’s mostly because of the knitting needles, though.”

“I’d be fine with a different close-range weapon. Would you, without your chains?”

Ren was about to reply that yes, he’d probably be fine, thank you very much, but then he saw that Ryhad had on the hint of a smile. He was being teased, and rising to it. “Don’t be jealous,” he said, and the smile became more pronounced.

“Maybe I am jealous. If I could steal those chains from you, believe me when I say I’d try, if only to borrow them.”

“They’re a lot of fun.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

On and on they went. The game didn’t seem to have many rules. It was possible it was a game of stamina, Caïn said, but unlikely. They walked, and walked, and absolutely nothing changed, until Ryhad came to an abrupt stop at a dead end. There was no way to go further.

Peering around, Ren walked forwards to tap the wall in front of them. Nothing happened. He tried to shove his shoulder into it with as much strength as he felt comfortable using, and still nothing. This close, he could see himself reflected in the wall: blurry and missing some details, but essentially there, a shock of white by his feet. Behind his reflection was the indistinct shape of Ryhad’s. He turned around.

“Are we supposed to go through here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know where to go. The signal cut off.” His expression darkened: still looking at the wall, he frowned in concentration, but there was something unstable mixed into it. Ren watched him, waiting to see if the instability was likely to do anything, but after a few seconds, it was as if it had never been. Ryhad blinked.

“The signal’s back,” he said, a note of confusion written into his voice. “It’s this way now.”

He looked as if he was concentrating very hard on something, so Ren didn’t question why they were now going back the way they’d come. He shared a look with Caïn and followed.

The walk resumed: the same boredom as before was now joined by the slight sense of unease that the dead end had provoked. If it had just been Ren, he wouldn’t worry about it. Tower games weren’t known for being logical. It was Ryhad’s reaction that unnerved him: it wasn’t normal for him to be shaken up by something like this, and after all, he knew his ability better than anyone else. So, just to be safe, Ren kept an ear and an eye out for anything that might happen, but still no monsters came. There was the smell of cat everywhere, but it never seemed to get closer or further away.

They ran into two more dead ends in the next half hour. Ren was just beginning to suggest they go back to the start and see if they could leave the instance after all when there came the sound of footsteps. Everyone went still immediately: Ryhad got out the over-sized knitting needles, Ren whispered the activation phrase for Divine Retribution (it stung as it came out of his cut-up forearms), and they waited as the footsteps came towards them.

No monsters came. They were humans: a nervous-looking man built like a tank, and a teenage girl holding her hands oddly in a way that must have been linked to a prop or ability. The four people looked at each other, sizing each other up; Caïn seemed entirely indifferent, but said, ‘ _I don_ _’t think there’s any need to be wary of them. They don’t look very powerful._ ’

Ryhad must have come to the same conclusion, because some of the stiffness had left his stance. That wasn’t to say he looked welcoming, but he never looked welcoming.

The man opposite them seemed to shake himself out of his daze. “Are you playing the instance too?”

Since Ryhad would not be accommodating, Ren stepped in and said, “Yeah, we are. We’re trying to—”

“For the love of god, don’t tell them,” Ryhad said, cutting him off without any real sign of urgency.

Ren was about to protest, but Caïn took over before that could happen. ‘ _They didn_ _’t ask if you were looking for the Dormouse too: either they don’t know or they don’t want you to know that’s what they’re doing, so you have no reason to tell them what you’re doing. Just be careful. You can tell them your name if you like. Say you’re trying to get out of the maze, if you must: that’s nice and general._ ’

“I’m Ren,” Ren said, ignoring the slightly bitter sigh that came from beside him. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re just trying to get out of the maze,” the girl said. “I’m Senri and they’re Salyan. Can we come with you?”

There was something stilted about the way she spoke, and she didn’t seem to emote much. Ren, who was by now used to that sort of behaviour, looked up at the other emotionless one in the room. “Do we mind?”

“If you want them to come along, I don’t care.” Ryhad began to walk past the other two, but he grabbed Ren’s hand to make sure he stayed close, too. It wasn’t the smartest move in the world to let the two newcomers walk behind them, but when Ren turned back and smiled, Salyan smiled back, nervously, and he took that as a good sign.

The strange thing, Ren thought, was that they hadn’t heard any sort of talking before the two of them had arrived. The footsteps had been sudden too, and — now he thought about it — the smell of cat was gone. At a fairly brisk pace, the four of them and Caïn walked through the maze, following Ryhad’s lead. He hid his ability by acting conflicted at every crossing.

‘ _They_ _’re not the Cheshire Cat, are they?_ ’ Ren asked as they rounded yet another corner to see all of nothing except sheer walls that reflected back their colours and shape, roughly.

Caïn made a humming sound. ‘ _A good line of thought! I_ _’m not sure. Monsters aren’t usually very subtle, so that’s making me think no, but it’s true that the smell disappeared when they appeared, and it’s all very suspicious. They don’t smell like cat, though._ ’

“You could try straight on here…?”

Ren looked around: it was Salyan’s suggestion, and they looked as if they now regretted giving it, which was no surprise given how Ryhad was glaring at them.

“I’ll go the way I choose to go,” he said calmly. “If you want to go straight ahead, by all means go.” With that, he turned to the left and continued to walk, pulling Ren with him. The other two did follow, Salyan looking heavily admonished. Ren couldn’t change his nature: his heart went out to them.

“Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Salyan looked up at him, apparently puzzled, but they mirrored Ren’s smile. “I just thought…maybe some input might help, you know? But obviously you should go the way you want to go.”

It was a little awkward looking over his shoulder to talk, but Ren wasn’t about to let Ryhad’s hand go if this was what Ryhad preferred, so he made do. “How did you get caught in this instance, anyway?”

“We were just driving. You too?”

It seemed innocent enough, and neither of his two censors stopped him, so Ren nodded. “Yeah, we were just heading into Krakow and bam! This happened. Crazy, right? But I guess you get used to it.”

There were the enthusiastic sounds of agreement characteristic of an awkward first conversation.

“And anyway, you heard the tower’s announcement, right?” Ren asked, indulging in a little light small talk. “We’re all going to have to get more involved with the tower games from now on.”

“I’m more worried about the reality instances.”

“Are you? Why? Do you know what they’re like?”

Salyan nodded. “Someone I know got caught in them. It was like the monster just came out from a normal building and dragged her inside. I don’t know whether she’s out yet or not…”

They walked through the maze, turning whenever Ryhad decided they should, and two of them chatted. It wasn’t the smoothest conversation in the world, but Ren made sure not to give out any important information, so he was chalking it up as a victory. It broke up the tedium, too; that was something. They hadn’t come across any more dead ends, and Ryhad seemed to be walking with more purpose than earlier, but they still hadn’t come across anything. They didn’t, in fact, for another twenty minutes. It was only then, in the middle of the unchanging maze, that they all heard a mouse’s squeak.

Having grown up in the country, Ren knew what mice sounded like and it wasn’t that. It was the cartoon interpretation of a mouse’s squeak, but that was enough. They began to hurry up, and the squeaks continued in the direction they were going. It was a frantic, distressing sound, and it didn’t appear to stay in one place, but it didn’t move too far away, either. They began to run and the mouse began to wail; they heard the scuttling of its claws on something hard, and it was tantalising: it always seemed it was just one turn away, but never was. The noises just grew louder and faster. And then, as they ran around another corner, silence slammed down over the maze.

They came to a stop, breathing heavily, looking around them. There was no sign of a mouse. It was just another corridor.

“I didn’t notice anything,” Ren said, looking up at Ryhad, who shook his head. He was staring down the corridor as if haunted. It was the same expression he’d made at the dead ends.

‘ _What was that? That wasn_ _’t the same as before, was it?_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t think so. It’s never disappeared from right under our noses before. I think we were supposed to be able to catch it that time, but I cannot for the life of me see how yet._ ’

“How about we try backtracking to see if we catch up to it again?” Senri asked. She was wringing her hands, and the run seemed to have been hard on her, because she was sweating: it shone in the soft light.

Ren looked up at Ryhad. “Should we?”

There was a pause, then he shook his head. “Let’s keep going.”

Senri laughed, briefly. “Just because you don’t trust me?”

“Just because I want to.”

The sound of squeaks came back within a minute. That was new, and welcome: Ren hadn’t exactly been looking forward to another ten or twenty minutes of walking. They began to run immediately, and it played out exactly the same as before. The squeaks grew louder, more upset: they closed in on it, heard it trying to get away, and within an instant, everything went quiet. Not silent, though: Ren just caught the tail-end of something scurrying away. One moment, frenzied squeaking; the next, that. And then there really was nothing else.

Senri didn’t try to suggest anything this time, and Salyan had clammed right up. Ren sent them back an encouraging smile which they returned. He turned around so he could see where he was going, and was taken by surprise at the sudden lack of warmth when Ryhad let go of his hand. To be fair, it was easier to move like that, so he didn’t question it. They walked on through the maze.

The squeaks had just started up again when Caïn asked, ‘ _You heard that sound after everything stopped, didn_ _’t you?_ ’

‘ _Yeah_ _…was that the Dormouse? I guess it’d have to be. But how did it get away so quickly?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’m not sure. I’m worried now. There’s probably a limit to how often we can try to catch it, and I’m not even certain why we haven’t been able to catch it these last two times. Those other two look terribly suspicious, but they also smell undoubtedly human, and I haven’t seen them do anything. We can only hope the next try reveals something else._ ’

As with the other two chases, they started by walking swiftly in the direction of the squeaking. It sounded about as scared as it always did, and Ren felt sorry for it in a general sort of way. Pity wasn’t going to make him endanger the game, at any rate. The scuttling and scampering had begun again: they started to run after it. Ryhad ran ahead, since he knew where to go: his plait bounced on his back, and Ren saw him reach for the knitting needles, but he didn’t draw them. It looked like he just touched one of them, and Ren was left unsure of whether he should get Divine Retribution out or not. He was about to ask Caïn when the squeaking was cracked by a high-pitched screech of fear. The Dormouse sounded so close to them, Ren half-expected to see it when they rounded the next corner, but it was just shrieking, shrieking — then, nothing.

The five of them ground to a halt. There was that same echo-like sound of the mouse running away, but it was distant. Ren couldn’t understand. There hadn’t been anything new this time, and he couldn’t figure it out. He was about to ask if Ryhad had any ideas when Ryhad whirled around and shoved a knitting needle against each of Senri and Salyan’s throats.

They stared. Ren stared. Remembering the fiasco with the fireflies on the second floor, he said gently, “Hey, they didn’t do anything, okay? It’s just the tower—”

“It’s not. It’s her ability.”

Senri’s eyes flashed. She was sweating quite badly, her jaw clenched, but they hadn’t run that far, and it wasn’t that hot.

“What ability?” she asked, and gasped when Ryhad pushed the needle further against her throat, cutting the skin. She and Salyan went very still.

“She’s stopping time,” Ryhad said without taking his eyes from them. “That, or she’s stopping our time, specifically. I cut myself while we were running: the cut bled regularly until all the noise stopped. When I checked then, it had pooled.”

Ren didn’t understand right away. He had to look: there were indeed small spots of blood on the dark stone blocks of the ground. In the space Ryhad had just been, there was a small puddle of it, as if he had stood in the same place for some time, when it couldn’t have been more than two seconds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Senri said, looking as if she’d have shaken her head if that wouldn’t have slit her neck. “If time’s been stopping, that has nothing to do with me, I swear.”

Still with his eyes glued to her, Ryhad said, “Check with Whisper of the Sea.”

Hurriedly, Ren got the shell out and tapped it, just to be sure of the instructions. He made a face.

“I’m just…I’m going to go over there to whisper a secret to it, okay?”

“As long as you’re quick.”

Ren jogged to the other side of the corridor and, as quietly as he could, told the shell about how he’d skipped half of his final year Geography lessons and had only passed at all through a coordinated cheating effort with his friends. It seemed safer than talking about Caïn at all: in a silent maze, sound carried. Apparently the secret was secret enough, because the shell began to glow, and said cheerfully, “You have been lied to in the past hour! What awful luck!”

“I haven’t lied to you,” Ryhad said. “The tower wouldn’t. That leaves these two.”

‘ _I wouldn_ _’t and haven’t either! They must have been set to work against you. I wish I’d thought of that blood thing._ ’

So that really did just leave the other two. Ren didn’t know what to say, or do. He wanted to stop Ryhad from killing them, but didn’t know how to say it, because if they really had been working against them, what was there to say? They couldn’t be sent off with a slap on the back of the hand.

Before anything could happen, however, the tower sang, “Ding dong! The Mouse-Catchers have successfully unmasked the Dormouse’s Henchmen! The Cheshire Cat doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Kitty wants revenge.”

That was all the warning they got before the cat materialised out of thin air.

It was massive, easily the size of a truck, its fur a grotesque mix of tie-dye purples and pinks, its eyes beady and its mouth lined with rows and rows of teeth, like a shark’s. It landed gracefully on one of the maze walls, looking down upon them, and for a moment Ren had no idea what to do: in those eyes all he could see was impersonal hunger. Then he was being dragged back to the end of the corridor, but he still watched the cat: he watched it jump onto the ground in front of the other two and, without a second of hesitation, bite off Senri’s head. There was a slick, wet, crunch, and her body collapsed; blood pooled around the mangled remains of her neck as the cat chewed. A breathless, broken scream came from Salyan’s mouth: they backed away, a prop in their hands, but though they threw it at the cat, it had no apparent effect. They tried with a giant, silver-rimmed hammer next, but it barely seemed to even inconvenience the cat, who stepped on the body it had left, stalking over to Salyan.

‘ _Look away now._ ’

He wasn’t able to. Everything was blank: he saw Salyan struggle with yet another prop, to no apparent effect, and saw the cat pounce on them, ripping their chest open with a single, vicious bite. That was not enough to kill humans, now. As their pain resistance had gone up, so had the degree of physical damage that could be withstood before death. Screams pierced the air, silenced when the cat had finished its mouthful and gone back for more. Blood dripping from the fur around its mouth, it looked up from the bodies and over at Ren. Then, it hopped back onto the wall, and in the next leap disappeared.

“Ding dong! Please continue to find the Dormouse!”

Ren’s body was turned around, away from the remains of the scene. He walked because it seemed instinctive to do so, and it was the warmth of a hand over his shoulders and Caïn’s body against his right leg that kept him walking. He felt like throwing up.

“Are you going to be able to keep going?”

“It just…”

“I know.” Ryhad’s grip grew tighter on his shoulder. “It was horrible and now we have to finish the game. That’s all. Can you do it?”

He had to swallow down the nausea: it took a few moments to answer. Then he said, “I can do it.”

“Good. It’s along here.”

As before, the squeaking returned after a few minutes. It took longer to get to it this time: presumably the Dormouse had got further away. Ren counted the turnings as something to focus on. After eleven of them, the squeaking was close enough to believe they were within close range. It sounded distressed, as always. They began to run after it, and it squeaked, and squeaked, and each squeak sounded more and more like a plea, but still they ran. If monsters wanted to kill monsters, that had nothing to do with them. They were just doing what they had to.

The squeaks were so loud Ren could have sworn the Dormouse was right by his ear when, in turning a corner, they saw it. There, watching them fearfully was a small, brown mouse, and it was inside the wall. That was the only way Ren could conceptualise it until it began to back away and he realised that it wasn’t inside the wall, but inside the reflection on the surface of the wall. It was brighter and more detailed than the reflection of his own body, but it didn’t exist in the same space they did, and it was moving further away.

Ryhad put a hand out in front of Ren’s chest, halting him; they stopped moving completely, and the mouse stopped too.

“Is there any point in sending you around the other side of that wall?” Ryhad asked, almost to himself. “I can’t see that that would do anything. We need to keep it there, but getting close scares it. Stopping time really would have come in useful here.”

“Do we have to lure it out?”

Ryhad looked at him. “Do you have bait?”

“I mean…”

‘ _You do. You have that jar in your bag._ ’

Obediently, trying to move slowly so as not to spook the mouse, Ren got the jar out. Inside, about five spores bounced around. He showed Ryhad the remark on the jar, that some monsters liked to eat them: it was decided that they at least wouldn’t lose anything by using it, and, holding the jar close to the ground, Ren opened it.

Lazily, the spores floated out into the air, and the mouse’s nose twitched. The spores bounced on the stone, and the mouse inched forwards. Little by little, they came closer, until the mouse exited the reflection like passing through a wall of water into the real world. It took small, cautious steps forwards and, when in range, leapt at a spore and ate it. There was a small, tinny cry. It ate another; another cry.

Ren didn’t want to say anything that might scare the mouse. ‘ _Why_ _…why are they screaming?_ ’

‘ _They_ _’re living creatures._ ’

That was all the answer he got. The mouse had eaten three of the five spores. With a quick glance at Ryhad to make sure he knew, Ren took tiny, tiny movements forwards and, when in range, fell on the mouse, catching it in his hands. It struggled and bit and scratched, but he managed to hold onto it, and was about to ask what he was supposed to do when there was a deep, heavy meow.

“Come back!”

The order came too late: the Cheshire Cat was already on the wall just above Ren, looking down at him, its tail up high and flicking from side to side. There was absolutely nothing in its eyes. He almost gave into fear, but with shaking hands offered the mouse up to the cat.

This was not the right decision. The cat leapt down to his level and, with one bat of its paw, sent him crashing against the wall. That wasn’t the part that hurt: it had used its claws and cleanly slit through the tendon of his right ankle. A single movement and he was unable to use his leg, pain shooting through it like electric wires were being shoved through his veins. He didn’t even have the time to get Divine Retribution out before the cat had caught the mouse that he had dropped and begun to eat it. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and then Ryhad was picking him up, getting as far back as he could — then, finally, as the Cheshire Cat chewed the squealing remains of the Dormouse, the tower informed them all that the game was over.

“Ding dong! At 15:09 on December 25th, 2017, the players Ren Delacroix and Ryhad Dalisirene have successfully cleared the group instance ‘Cheshire Cat’s Waltz’ and have won the rewards ‘Cheshire Cat’s Pas de Deux’.”

 

 

Ren’s leg hurt. They’d wrapped it up and set it as best they could with what they could find on the motorway, and now he was sitting in the front seat of the car, trying not to move very much. It was likely to take a few days to heal properly, since neither of them had any healing ability or props. The prop they’d just got wasn’t to do with healing either, which Caïn called shockingly bad luck. It was instead a headband with cat ears that read:

 

[Prop: Cheshire Cat’s Pas de Deux]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Good]

[Level: 3]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: One owner can swap locations with the other. Only one need activate the prop for it to take effect.]

[Restrictions: Players must be within twenty metres of each other and both must be in possession of the prop. ‘Love me or leave me nya~’ must be recited to activate.]

[Remarks: You don’t have to wear the cat ears for it work, but why be a killjoy?]

 

It was another pair prop, but it wasn’t as if that was a problem anymore. Ren had shoved his cat ears into his bag and decided to forget about them. Ryhad drove silently. It was highly unlikely he would be the first to speak, and Ren wasn’t really feeling it. He felt, instead, ragged.

There was nothing to concentrate on to drown out the pain. It was bright and throbbing in his ankle, even with heightened pain resistance, and his forearms were stinging again. Ryhad had recommended he try to sleep, but he hadn’t been able to: it was a mix of the pain and the fact that sleep was, for all of them, fast becoming increasingly unnecessary. Caïn napped on his lap, a warm little presence, and he stroked him idly, wishing something would happen. When it did, they had been driving for an hour or more in total silence, digesting the game they’d just been through. The tower’s voice wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted to hear.

“Ding dong!” it said cheerfully. “America District 3’s official player Rohan O’Neill and stowaway Kieran O’Neill have successfully cleared the third floor of the black tower!”

Without feeling much of anything, Ren looked out over the road and listened to the announcement repeat twice more. When it was over, he said, “That was quick.”

“Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“That it wasn’t you or your sister.”

“It’s fine: we got the second floor, anyway. She’ll have heard, and if she’s heard, she’ll be coming to find me too.”

Ryhad carefully manoeuvred around a few cars that were blocking the road. “You’re sure about that?”

“Absolutely, 100%. Nothing would stop Vike coming to find me, just like nothing will stop me going to find her.” He said it with complete conviction, and was answered with a nod. It seemed the conversation was about to fizzle out there, but he didn’t want to let go of it: grasping at it as if at the string of a balloon floating away, he said, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No. I’m an only child.”

He wanted to keep talking, wanted to do something to solidify the companionship they had together. Ren wasn’t the type of person who could live without companions, and in a world stripped to the bone, he needed assurance that he had them. He knew it was pushing, but he asked, “Do you know if you have any family around?”

“Not for sure.” He showed no sign of distress: watching the road, he said, “I know my father’s gone. I have no idea if my mother survived: she hasn’t lived with us for some years. If my uncle survived, I haven’t heard of it. I don’t have any other close family, apart from Foryn, and you saw for yourself that she’s fine.”

“Any friends? Co-workers? You work, right? How old are you, anyway?”

“I do work,” he said with the shadow of a smile in his voice. “I’m twenty-four and worked at my father’s company. I can’t say I was close to my co-workers.”

“So… I mean, you didn’t have much to stay in France for?”

“I didn’t. Did you have much to stay in Belgium for? Were you a university student?”

“Yeah, first year. And…I don’t know.” He tried to slump down in his seat but that moved his leg and he sat straight up again, wincing. “I think…I think my parents didn’t make it. I don’t know if my friends did: I didn’t check. I heard Vike was fine, and I just…I wanted to go to her. I think I wanted something to do. There’s nothing here anymore, and having a goal is something, right? Even if it’s ‘go to China’. It’s still something. And like…you need something.”

“I do.”

“Oh, no, I meant like in general—”

“I know. But I need something too. I have no one else to follow: I might as well follow you.”

Unsure of what to say, Ren turned his head to look at him, but Ryhad hadn’t looked away from the road. There wasn’t even any traffic, but perhaps he thought that what he’d said was so inconsequential it didn’t deserve more.

“I guess, yeah,” was what Ren eventually settled on, a nervous laugh in the back of his throat. “It’s important to have something to keep you going when it’s just game after game.”

“I’m fairly sure other people aren’t playing the games at as fast a rate as we are.”

“What about that American pair?”

“I mean,” he said, glancing quickly at Ren, “that there are a select few players who are attacking the tower with everything they have, for whatever reason. We’re part of that group. But most people won’t, otherwise there wouldn’t be any need for the tower to bring in that rule about forcing players to attack the tower. I’m sure many people are trying to lay low and not deal with any of it.”

“I kind of wish I was doing that.”

“Do you? If you didn’t have to find your sister, would you?”

Dull, greying scenery flashed past the passenger window. There was very little life around. No animals, no other people, and — in winter — the flora was just holding on. Ren watched it, thinking. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really want to think about how I’d be feeling if I didn’t have something to do. Something to chase. You know?”

“I know.”

The car was quiet: muffled and cut off from the outside world. If Ren closed his eyes and tried his best to ignore the pain, he could believe that nothing was wrong, that this was just a drive like any other. The car cut out a slice of normality in a world crowded with unfamiliarity. But it was because it was quiet, and comfortable, and gentle like a hand stroking his hair and telling him he could take a moment to breathe now, that he felt he wanted to cry. That was very silly of him. There was no reason to cry. If he cried at everything upsetting that happened nowadays, he’d never stop.

But everything was foreign. Even his own body wasn’t his own, now. It was stronger, faster, more resistant, didn’t need the same things he did. He felt, sometimes, that he didn’t belong inside it — there was another silly thought. So what if it didn’t feel like him? It was all he had.

“Do you think,” he said slowly, “that if we clear the seventh floor, everything will go back to how it was?”

Ryhad took a while to answer that one. The sky was still an insistent grey, white shining through some of the weaker spots in the clouds; uninspiring scenery and concrete passed by. There wasn’t the sense that Ryhad was ignoring his question, or that he was occupied with other things: he seemed only to be thinking. Eventually, he said, “I don’t know. I really couldn’t tell you.”

At least he hadn’t lied.

“Can we attack the tower again soon?” Ren asked.

“Let’s find a city with a tower in it and wait until your leg’s healed first.”

Ren nodded, prepared to accept this. “Can we get more clothes while we wait, then?”

“You just got more in Krakow.”

“I only got one pair of jeans, though, and the cat cut through these.”

“Then yes, I suppose you’ll need more jeans,” was Ryhad’s generous concession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: so just generally what are we feeling about ren somehow managing to not die even once in this thing  
> jiirva: i think he should use my blessing more often  
> hosgard: an excellent and worrying answer! mirenwe how about you  
> mirenwe: i think he should die as little as possible  
> hosgard: a sweet and naive idea. adam what's your hot take  
> mirenwe: wait what  
> jiirva: who  
> adam: no idea what's going on but i've got this controversial opinion that less dying is probably good  
> hosgard: what if i told you he could revive  
> adam: oh then who cares  
> hosgard and jiirva: this guy gets it  
> mirenwe: [internally] mirenwe's heart is bitter but mirenwe cannot say anything


	12. [seductive voice] what a dirty, DIRTY boy you've been [i am shot]

On the 25th, they had settled into a middling-level Ukrainian city called Ivano-Frankivsk. There, they had found an abandoned house and hunkered down to wait for Ren’s tendon to heal up, and it took its sweet time doing it. Ren was very good and didn’t move his leg much at all while they were waiting, so he got bored easily, and became an absolute menace. Ryhad, not blessed with Caïn’s patience, didn’t even bother to put up with him when he started whining for something to do: using his functioning mobility, he left the house to explore, to find the jeans Ren had asked for, and — in this way — got caught in a minor reality instance.

All in all, it was an eventful few days. It was the 29th before they were able to attack the third floor.

The nice thing was that there was no organised force of stowaways in Ivano-Frankivsk. No one bothered them as they headed to the tower that hung over the city, and there was no one watching as they entered it.

“Ding dong! The black tower’s third floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Welcome to the Junk Forest! Let’s find Grandmother!”

“Not another one…” Ren groaned, looking around him. “Haven’t we had enough of grandmothers by now?”

“We’ve had one,” Ryhad reminded him, looking around the forest. It was only then that Ren started to pay attention to the space he was inhabiting, and he wrinkled his nose.

Everything was rotten. Trees hung broken, bark hanging off them like strands of greasy hair, and growths of luminous white mushrooms crept into every nook and cranny. The ground was littered with black, rotting twigs and branches; in between these poked withered nettles. There was rubbish everywhere. It weighed down the struggling trees, cutting out the sunlight in places, and huddled like nests around the roots: crumbled cardboard and piecemeal plastic lay strewn around larger pieces of scrap metal, like parts from machines Ren had never heard of. Small bluebottles shimmered in bright blues and greens around the bigger piles of junk, but it didn’t smell as bad as it might have. It was the rich, roughly-putrid smell of natural rot, that was all.

His disgust must have shown on his face, because he turned to see Ryhad looking at him knowingly.

It seemed expected, and he really did feel that way, so he said, “I need about twenty showers just standing here.”

“It’s just mould, Ren.”

“And we’re breathing that in! This is disgusting!”

With a small, indulgent smile, Ryhad turned to walk through the trees — some of which looked like they might be slimy to the touch. “Don’t be a child about it. You can have as many showers as you like when we’ve cleared it.”

Picking his way very, very carefully, Ren followed him. Caïn padded along without a care, hopping over some sort of rust-studded metal cylinder and landing on a pool of mushrooms without any obvious repulsion. ‘ _I think I know which Grandmother we_ _’re going to see_ ,’ he said pleasantly.

‘ _There_ _’s more than one option?_ ’

‘ _Oh, there are many, many Grandmothers. It_ _’d be nice if they were all named in a way that makes sense, but they’re not. Grandma is Grandma, and this one is probably the Wolf Grandmother. I’d have said Baba Yaga, but of course if it was her, the tower would have called her that._ ’

‘ _Who_ _’s the Wolf Grandmother?_ ’

‘ _Little Red Riding Hood._ ’

‘ _Oh._ ’

Ren decided he regretted wearing a red hoodie, and wondered if that had affected the tower’s choice of game at all.

For all it was foul, the forest was light and there was a decent breeze going through it. There was no apparent sign of an exit from the forest, but there hadn’t been in Grandma’s forest either. Ren wondered if all Grandmothers had assigned forests and rather hoped that if they did, he wouldn’t be forced to go to another one. This one was doing an excellent job of putting him off forests entirely. He lagged behind Ryhad, trying not to step on anything too disgusting, and they walked randomly through the trees and occasional openings; no Grandmother made her presence known.

“Have you tried tracking her?” Ren asked, making a jump for it over a little river of black slime that oozed from one tree to another.

“I have, but it doesn’t work. ‘Grandmother’ is too general.”

“I remember someone mentioned once that there’s a whole lot of Grandmothers: why don’t we just try some of them?”

“Do you have a list on you?” Ryhad asked dryly.

“I _mean_ ,” —Ren jerked back from a mouldy branch that had swung too close to him— “what are some famous grandmothers in fairy-tales and stuff? Grandma mentioned the Wolf Grandmother at one point. They’re friends, she said.”

“That isn’t exactly promising for us, knowing Grandma. But alright, if you—” He had turned around to face Ren and cut himself off — for a moment, his expression cracked and horror shone through. Then, he reached out a hand and said, “Get over here, now.”

Tower games weren’t forgiving to those of slow reaction times: without thinking, Ren sprinted over and only when the three of them were in one defendable position did he turn around to see what Ryhad had unsheathed the knitting needles for.

The forest was bright. Bland sunlight fell through the junk in the upper branches, so there was nothing particularly scary about it: no shadows or the threat of anything lurking in them. It was, however, perfectly light enough to see in total clarity the wolf slowly stalking towards them. In height, it must have reached Ren’s neck at least, and it had bulk to match: black-shot brown fur bristled around its head threateningly, and bright yellow eyes watched them with every step it took.

‘ _Is that the Wolf Grandmother?!_ ’

‘ _I have no idea,_ ’ Caïn said mildly, cocking his small head at the approaching wolf. ‘ _I_ _’ve never met her._ ’

“What are the chances it’s not here to hurt us?” Ren asked aloud. “Like, roughly?”

Ryhad didn’t take his eyes from the wolf. “Not favourable. Have you never been in a game that sets you against monsters who want you dead straight away?”

“Uh…no.”

“First time for everything.”

Apparently they were not going to run. Ren couldn’t fault the logic: in a forest this light and airy, they wouldn’t get very far from a great hulking wolf set on killing them. He got Divine Retribution out (with every use, he regretted the activation phrase) and gently pushed Caïn behind him. Then, waiting to see what the wolf would do, but confident in his ability to act in an instant if it became necessary, he stood there.

The wolf didn’t seem in a hurry. It stepped over the piles of junk without taking its eyes from the group in front of it; its legs moved without releasing any of their apparent power. When it was close enough that it could, had it so wished, leapt at them, it twitched its ears, and — mid-step — transformed. A wolf’s paw lifted up, and when it came down, it was a human foot in a heavy leather boot, attached to a man smiling at them almost (but not quite) smugly.

“Whoa there,” he said, smiling wider. “No need to get violent.”

The man was easily a hundred and eighty centimetres, maybe a hundred and ninety, with well-defined muscles visible through the clothes he had chosen to wear. Messy brown curls just a shade darker than his skin were tied back in a tiny ponytail and smoothed down into a wave of a fringe over one eye which he pushed back in an entirely useless gesture, since it then fell down again. The only reminders of the wolf he had just been were in the large, bouffant tail curling around one leg, and two wolfish ears on top of his head. These features were not typically found in humans: Ren didn’t know what to make of him, but he did retract his prop now there was no obvious threat. Ryhad did not.

‘ _Is he dangerous?_ ’

‘ _Not right now._ ’

From a certain point of view, that was encouraging, so Ren decided to be up-front (though this was less a conscious decision and more a consequence of his nature). “Are you human?” he asked.

“Don’t I look human?”

“You’ve got the…” He gestured to the top of his own head.

“Oh, those just pop up for a while if I spend too long as a wolf,” the man said in a friendly voice. “What’s your name?”

“Ren. Yours?”

He didn’t get an answer. Instead, the man hummed in thought and said, “The one who cleared the second floor first? So that’d make you Ryhad Dalisirene?”

Ryhad very visibly did not like this latest development.

‘ _I think we might refrain from giving out your name from now on_ ,’ Caïn said thoughtfully. ‘ _I completely forgot about that tower announcement somehow._ ’

Ren couldn’t blame him: he’d forgotten that people other than Vike would have heard that announcement too. He wasn’t sure it mattered terribly, but perhaps it did, because the man laughed and said, “Not like the black tower to take pity on me and give me what I want the first game I try. I’ve been looking for you. Not in a weird way: I just want to play a game with you. Oh come on, don’t look at me like that: you’re not worried I’m going to do anything, are you? I just want to play with the other highest Europe zone players.”

“The other highest?”

The man smiled — it seemed he always smiled, but this one in particular felt notable. “I’m Norhan Eppalai: I doubt big-shots like you remember, but I was first in this zone to clear the first floor. There, now we’re equal. Feel better?”

Ryhad did not appear to feel better. He had still pointedly not sheathed the knitting needles, and didn’t seem likely to anytime soon.

If that bothered Norhan, he didn’t let it show. “So I know you’re both attacking the third floor,” he said, putting a finger to his chin, “and I am too, so we’re on the same one. Given the instructions I got, I don’t think you could be working against me, and as far as I know, games usually don’t switch to player-vs-player mid-game, so I’m guessing we’re working together. Unless we’re going to be split into teams? But that hasn’t happened yet. So I’m thinking you two are safe.” He turned, hands in pockets, to look somewhere to his left, and said, “Cade, you can come out now.” Then, to them, “This is my sister.”

A small child came out from behind a tree: she must have been about ten, or some equally androgynous age, but Ren would have assumed she was a boy if Norhan hadn’t said ‘sister’. She had wilder curls than him and lighter skin, and a frown that looked printed onto her face — not from anger, but mistrust. Ren realised, as she walked to her brother’s side, that he couldn’t remember seeing a single child since the earth went online.

“Cade, say hi.”

Cade did not: she hid behind her brother’s tail and nodded solemnly.

A child was enough proof for Ren that they were safe: bending down to pick Caïn up and hold him, he said, “Hi! Like I said, I’m Ren and this is Ryhad — look, Ryhad, could you put those away?”

There was a moment of deliberation, but he did sheathe the knitting needles. He didn’t look any friendlier afterwards, but it was a start.

“And this is Caïn,” Ren finished now that that was over. He waved Caïn’s paw in greeting.

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that, actually. Is that a fox?”

“He’s a fox, yeah.”

“Why do you have a fox?”

‘ _I_ _’m your pet fox._ ’

“He’s my pet fox.”

“Right, but…all animals disappeared when most of the population did. So…?”

Everyone now appeared to be looking at him with at least mild interest, even Ryhad, and Ren had really thought he’d given up on getting an answer vis-a-vis Caïn by now. Giving them all a winning smile, he said, “I just love him a whole lot, so he got brought in too!”

Wearily, Caïn said, ‘ _I suppose that_ _’ll work._ ’

It did, apparently. No one questioned it. In the time it took him to gently set Caïn back down on the ground, the two newcomers had joined them and Norhan said, “Better go and find Grandmother then, yeah?”

Ryhad looked at him but didn’t forebear to comment: he walked straight on and Ren followed him after waving a little at Cade just to see if she’d respond. She did, but not very energetically. The tower games took a lot out of you: Ren could understand if she wasn’t in top shape, since she was younger than them all. He turned around, but was stopped by a question.

“So, come here often?”

Ren looked back around in surprise. For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to respond, but no one was actively telling him not to talk, so, eyeing a suspicious copper-coloured fluid dripping down a branch near him, he said, “I wouldn’t _want_ to. This is so nasty.”

“What about games? Do a lot of them? I guess you’d have to, to get to this level.” Norhan didn’t seem like he was probing for information: he was just chatting, a hand on his sister’s head as if to keep her by him.

“I mean…we’ve done some.”

‘ _You might like to keep things there and not tell him about your sister, to be on the safe side._ ’

Oblivious to this well-meant warning, Norhan nodded and said, “They’re kind of shit, aren’t they?”

Ren couldn’t help a surprised laugh. “Yeah, I mean, they’re not great. People die and all that. And the monsters are all pretty horrible. The Mermaid Princess wasn’t _that_ bad but she still sort of left us to die, so I don’t know…”

“Have you had one where they coo over how you’re a lovely human but also they want to kill you? That’s a classic.”

“Not yet! I had Grandma, but she kept calling me Hansel and I think she only really loved Hansel and she just wanted me dead, so that was fun.” He grinned, and Norhan joined in.

“Ah, I’d bet you’re better than Hansel anyway.” His eyes were glittering: they weren’t the yellow they’d been as a wolf, but better — a light, gold-spun brown. He couldn’t have been out of his twenties, but he had the hint of laugh lines. “Was there any Gretel in that one? Did you have to kill her?”

“Oh, Ryhad was Gretel,” Ren said, pointing ahead. Ryhad must have been using his ability because he hadn’t faltered once in walking through the trashed forest. “I think I probably was supposed to kill him in some way, but we worked it out.”

“Cool, cool. Is he always like this?”

Ryhad didn’t react to that one, but Ren got the feeling that he’d probably rolled his eyes. “Well, we don’t know you, you know? Got to be careful: he’s got this thing called caution.”

“And you don’t?”

Ren grinned. “Guess not!”

‘ _And isn_ _’t that the damn truth._ ’

It didn’t take much longer to reach the cottage. It bore a striking resemblance to Grandma’s, but where hers had been sticky sweets in woods right out of a horror film, this was a shack in a dump of a forest. It was just holding up, but there were clear signs of woodworm, the grey paint on the outside was peeling where it wasn’t bruised with water damage, there were rusty pipes lying around the entrance, and all available surfaces were covered in a modest layer of dust.

Ren wrinkled his nose. Looking up at Ryhad, he said, “This can’t really be it, right? I’m not going in there.”

“You can stay outside if you like,” Ryhad said generously, and went to knock on the rotting door.

A minute passed before there was any sound from inside. Then there was a loud, resounding grunt, and creaks. The door opened, and before them stood a wolf at least as tall as Grandma had been. She was scraggly, her grey fur matted and balding in patches, and she was wearing a faded night-dress and bonnet that only served to make her look even more grotesque, somehow. Ren almost blanched to look at her, and then really did blanch at the rush of stale air that came from the house.

All of them tensed, ready for if she reacted badly to being disturbed, but she only looked at them with milky eyes, and then focused on Ren and Ryhad.

“You’re my friend Grandma’s grandchildren,” she said in a voice hoarser than if she’d smoked for eighty years straight.

Briefly, Ren weighed up the likelihood that confirming this would benefit them against the likelihood that Grandma was bitter about what had happened and might have told her friend — evidently he wasn’t brief enough, because before he’d got anywhere close to deciding, Ryhad said, “We are. Could we come in?”

It was as if the Wolf Grandmother’s whole demeanour had been switched. She clasped her ragged hands together, grinning with a mouth full of teeth. “Of course, my sweet children,” she said, ushering them in. “You must have been so cold out there. Come in, come in, and your little friends too.”

They followed her inside. The house was, put simply, a mess. Everything was either dusty or stained or both, and nothing was in moderation. Ratty blankets lay over everything; cooking pots with leftovers so mouldy the original food couldn’t even be guessed at littered the floor; junk just like that from the forest piled in corners, and sometimes there was the sound of scuttling. Ren had never seen a cockroach, and didn’t want to guess that the scuttling was due to them, but unfortunately it seemed likely. There was a fireplace, but it was so covered in ash and soot that he couldn’t imagine it was usable.

In the midst of all of this, the Wolf Grandmother smiled at them and said, “Sit, sit!”

There was one enormous sofa pushed back against one wall, with the clear outline of her body in the dust. Obediently, they all sat there, but Norhan pulled his sister into his lap rather than have her sit on it. Caïn took his place on Ren’s lap without permission.

“It is so lovely of you good children to come and visit me,” the Wolf Grandmother said, still smiling. “None of you young people think about how lonely we Grandmothers get, so I can’t say how happy I am to see all of you! Will you stay for tea? Of course you will! Good children should get treats, so I’ll fix you up a nice tea, won’t I? I have some leftover banana wine, but…” Milky eyes ran over them and it was like being touched by a finger dipped in the filth around them. “I couldn’t possibly give good children wine! You shall have some tea. And then I should like to hear you all tell me about what you’ve been doing in school! Good children are so sweet, but _clever_ children… Clever children are what I like best. I hope you’ve all been studying well! Now, just you sit tight while Grandmother makes you something nice.”

She turned to leave into what was presumably the kitchen, and the tower’s voice came out of nowhere.

“Ding dong! Triggered Branch 1: ‘Find Grandmother’s Secret’! The players will have three periods of ten minutes to find the six clues to the Wolf Grandmother’s Secret. The Wolf Grandmother cannot hear or detect anything in the living room when she is in the kitchen. If the Secret is not found in the allotted time, the Wolf Grandmother will know the players are not clever children and will eat them.

“Oh, what a slovenly Grandmother she is. Too lazy to clean, and too lazy to even remove the clues to her crimes! No wonder she lives alone.”

The second the Wolf Grandmother was out of the room, they all rushed into action. In the background was the Wolf Grandmother’s off-tune humming.

“They’ve got to be in here, right?” Ren asked, grimacing as he started to take apart a heap of junk in the corner.

Ryhad was across the room, pulling apart the sofa. “The tower mentioned the living room specifically, so yes.”

“How do we even know what we’re looking for?!”

“You sure worry a lot, don’t you?” Norhan said amiably, and was stopped by his sister tugging on his sleeve: saying his name softly, she held out a length of rope.

They all looked at it. There was nothing that stood out about it apart from the undeniable fact that it was clean. In a house like this, that made a difference. Norhan tapped it and rows of glowing words popped up, but Ren was too far to read them.

“It’s a prop,” he said. “Guess that’s what we’re looking for.”

They began to search again — to search for clean things among the rubble. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, because the Wolf Grandmother’s house was worthy of a hoarder: total junk was absolutely everywhere, and it wasn’t all benign. Ren swore when he cut his hand on a jagged piece of glass, and warned the others; in moving a cupboard, Norhan found a termite nest and swiftly put the cupboard right back, his tail flicking from side to side; every so often a pile of junk would threaten to topple over and crush someone. At the end of the first ten minutes, when the Wolf Grandmother’s footsteps moved towards the door, they had found three items: the rope, a handkerchief that had been lying in between two stinking blankets, and a hairbrush with long, golden hairs still trapped in it. Carrying these, they rushed back to the stripped sofa and sat down, watching the door. It opened, and the Wolf Grandmother peeked in.

“My sweet children,” she said, smiling, “I’ve forgotten: do children prefer slugs or worms?”

“We prefer worms,” Norhan replied brightly.

“Oh, wonderful. Grandmother prefers worms too,” she said, and left. The humming resumed. So did the search.

Since the Wolf Grandmother hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss in the wrecked room, they proceeded to wreck it even more. Checking that no one was in the way, Ryhad kicked down a bookcase that threw up a cloud of dust in the room and also revealed a prop abacus attached to the cracking backing for some reason. This was put in a safe pile with the other props and they continued to look for the remaining three.

There was just so very much junk that it became difficult to be sure they weren’t dirtying the props they were looking for. Five minutes of violent rummaging passed by. The bookcase was shoved back against the wall because it was in the way, and all the books were kicked around, revealing nothing. Ren was about to tackle the fireplace when there was a ripping sound from behind him: flinching, he turned around to see Norhan pulling up the fitted carpet at the behest of his sister, finding a glowing torque, of all things, stuck between the worm-ridden carpet and the floorboards, which were in a worse state than the carpet. One prop left to find.

‘ _Come over here._ ’

Ren went over to the wall at which Caïn was whining and scratching as if to make a show for the others. ‘ _Have you found something?_ ’

‘ _There_ _’s something odd about the colouring on this wall._ ’

‘ _That_ _’s called damp._ ’

‘ _Yes, and there_ _’s a circle where there is no damp,_ ’ Caïn said patiently. He was right, too. Swallowing heavily, Ren braced himself and kicked through the plaster that fell away like crumbling cheese; behind it, in the hollow space between two walls, was a single egg. It was very clean, and tapping it revealed it to be a prop.

So that was six.

They laid them out on the sofa, which — though its pillows and cover had been tossed aside — was essentially the only thing left standing the room. There was the rope, the handkerchief, the hairbrush, the abacus, the torque, the egg. None of them seemed to have anything in common except for being props.

“Are we supposed to use them to defeat her?” Ren asked as an open question.

Ryhad shook his head. “The tower said these were six clues to her secret. We haven’t actually found the secret yet.”

“Do you think we have to use them all?” Norhan wondered aloud. “Like if we tie something up with the rope, and brush someone’s hair, and so on. Not sure how to use the egg, though.”

“Eat it.”

Norhan blinked at the unexpected answer from Ryhad, and said cautiously, “Are you…ordering me to eat that thing?”

“I was suggesting it. But I also think we don’t have to use them to get to the secret, and if you eat it before we find the secret I will kill you.”

He felt disloyal for it, but Ren couldn’t help the worried exasperation that rose in his chest. Caïn rubbed against his legs comfortingly, getting dust all over his nice new jeans, and said, ‘ _At least he_ _’s being consistent._ ’

‘ _Consistently murderous!_ ’

‘ _He_ _’s never tried to kill you, though. I think that’s a good thing._ ’

‘ _You don_ _’t know what the secret is, do you?_ ’ Ren asked, mostly to drop that thread of conversation.

‘ _Not a clue! I shall think on it._ ’

Ryhad was apparently so discomfited by the presence of strangers that he didn’t think aloud like he usually would, and the room was mostly silent in the last minute or so while they thought. Then the Wolf Grandmother’s footsteps came closer and they all whirled around, looking innocent as anything in a room left ransacked.

“My dears,” she said, opening the door, “do you think you might like a little sip of banana wine, after all? You’re such very good children: it can be our secret from my good friend Grandma.” There was a stomach-churning attempt at a wink.

“We shouldn’t,” Ryhad said firmly. “We’re underage.”

“Oh, what a _good_ child you are. I shall be sure to let Grandma know. Now, you keep playing a little while longer: Grandmother will be finished soon.”

The door shut, she began to hum again, and they all turned to look at the items.

“There are a few options,” Ryhad said. “It could be the items, or the places we found the items.”

“The places? You think the secret might be there?” Norhan seemed sceptical but ready to try it. Not wasting any time, they all went back to examine the places they’d found the props, with no luck. Nothing seemed to connect them.

Ryhad continued: “The items themselves, then. I don’t think we have to use them. There’s nothing obvious to use them on. I don’t think they’ll be any use in defeating her.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Ren asked, since they were all thinking it.

“I’ll need to think.”

Thinking occurred. During this time, Cade tried ordering the items differently in a line, then in a circle, and nothing happened. Five minutes had passed when they began to feel the pressure: just to check, the items were used (the egg was cracked in a controlled environment) and nothing happened. There was an attempt to combine items, but now the egg was cracked, that became difficult. They tried a whole manner of different things in rapid succession, but nothing had any effect, and the Wolf Grandmother’s humming was a discordant constant in the background.

“Maybe we really are supposed to fight her with them…” Ren suggested without much confidence in what he was saying.

“That doesn’t make any sense: these are the clues, not the secret.”

“But what if they’re clues because we use them against her and then her secret comes out…?” He tried to reason with Ryhad, but Ryhad was already closing up into the cold, mercenary man he became under stress.

“It should be here,” he said, like a threat.

“What if it’s outside after all?” Norhan suggested. “We had to use the living room for this part, and then we go outside for the second part.”

“And waste time? No.”

Norhan frowned, but said pleasantly, “I was just trying to think outside the box.”

“Don’t bother.”

The frown deepened. He seemed about to say something back when Ryhad turned on him, eyes dangerously dark. “I have no obligation to work with you. Don’t think you can show up as a wolf in a wolf-based game and escape suspicion.”

Incredulity painted Norhan’s face, but he didn’t voice it. Perhaps he knew they didn’t have the time: he only moved Cade closer to him, shook his head at Ren, who had been about to step in awkwardly, and said, “Then tell us what you think we should do, and we will.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then—” and he cut himself off: he must have seen the tension stiff in the lines of Ryhad’s jaw.

“It’s right here,” he said, his voice like the tremors before an eruption. “It should be right here.”

But the only things there were the props: a rope, a handkerchief, a hairbrush, an abacus, a torque, an egg.

‘ _Any ideas?_ ’ Ren asked Caïn, because he was utterly stumped.

‘ _None. This isn_ _’t very good._ ’ The words didn’t suit his voice: he sounded concerned.

“Realistically speaking,” Norhan said, “the four of us should be able to take her. Just in case it, you know, comes to that. Because I’m not coming up with anything here.”

None of them were. Time ran out.

Ryhad didn’t turn around, so he didn’t see the Wolf Grandmother come in, all smiles. “My sweet children,” she said, “there’s a nice tea for you in the kitchen. Come through, won’t you?”

Her smile was not encouraging. There was blood all down the front of her night-dress. Ren swallowed, and said, “Grandmother, um, I’m really sorry, but I’m not very hungry.”

“Aren’t you, dear?” The smiles didn’t stop. “But my good children wouldn’t put my cooking to waste, would they? Ah…but you aren’t good children, are you? You’re stupid, aren’t you? Not a cell in those empty skulls of yours.” Her milky eyes opened, swimming with some kind of fluid. “Let’s crack them open to see.”

From her pocket, she brought out a cleaver, and Ren immediately activated Divine Retribution; Norhan pulled his sister behind him and transformed, leaving their side of the room uncomfortably cramped. Ryhad’s hand was on the knitting needles, but he didn’t turn around. He stared at the items in total absorption. Even as the Wolf Grandmother took great, lumbering steps towards them, dust shaking down from the ceiling with each impact of her foot on failing floorboards, he didn’t turn around. It was only when she raised her cleaver, clearly aiming for him, that he darted past Ren, who had moved in to shield him, and dove towards the fireplace. Most of the ash had been blown away in all the mess, but he dug through what was left, hurling blackened twigs back into the room, and pulled up a handful of human bones.

The room went still. The cleaver, halfway down through its trajectory to Ren’s neck, stopped. Everyone looked at the bones.

“Hairbrush, egg, abacus, rope, torque, handkerchief,” Ryhad said. “It spells hearth. You took those props from the other players you brought here and you buried their bones in the hearth. That’s your secret.”

The air seemed to close in on them, a chokehold of stale dust. In a pleasantly surprised voice, Caïn said, ‘ _They do word games now! That_ _’s very new. They must have updated the translation network._ ’

Ren didn’t know how to reply to that.

“Oh,” the Wolf Grandmother finally said, her voice low and rough as rocks crashing together. “Perhaps you do have a few cells in there after all.”

The house — sorely tested in their excavations — began to collapse around them. They protected themselves from the rubble, dust bursting into clouds around them and obscuring everything, and the tower said, “Ding dong! Triggered main branch: ‘Grandmother’s Game’!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard, kindly: i'm sorry. this must have been a hard chapter to be here for  
> adam: excuse me what  
> hosgard: because. well. you know.  
> jiirva, sipping more chianti: because wolf boy can transform but you're left growling and shit in human form like some kind of maniac  
> adam:  
> adam:  
> adam: it's not. like tha-  
> jiirva: it is like that  
> hosgard: it is like that  
> mirenwe, sadly: it is like that!  
> me: adam it really is like that but it's okay you're more of a dominant than they'll ever be [i am chased from the author's notes by jiirva with a broom]


	13. a nice relaxing board game with grandmamma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore

“Ding dong!” chimed the tower. “Triggered main branch: ‘Grandmother’s Game’! The game rules are as follows.

“First: there are four types of square on the game board. These are Neutral, Punishment, Question and Double, appearing half, one quarter, one eighth and one eighth of the time, respectively. Neutral squares have no particular effect. Punishment squares will punish the player once for each turn they spend on the square. Question squares allow the player on them to ask the Wolf Grandmother one question: she must answer but must not necessarily answer truthfully. Double squares allow the player to take two turns consecutively.

“Second: the number of moves a player may take is decided by the die.

“Third: the game is limited to the game board: the players cannot breach its boundaries.

“Fourth: a player cannot leave the square they are on except on their turn, to move to a different square.

“Please unmask Grandmother!”

When the dust settled, Ren wiped his eyes and looked around. The clearing the shack had been in was suddenly much bigger, and the shack itself had completely disappeared. In its place was an enormous game  board. It was roughly symmetrical: there were starting squares in the bottom left and top right hand corners of a giant rectangle. From each, squares went to the opposite side, went up or down two squares in the direction of the centre, went across the board again, and so on, winding along until the centre. Each square was large enough for two humans to stand in with some personal space, and each had a large letter written on it — N, Q, P or D. In the centre was a pedestal with an enormous basket that seemed to contain fresh bread and a bottle of wine. The smell wafted around the clearing: that and the cleanliness of the board were a welcome departure from the rest of the forest.

Next to the board was the Wolf Grandmother, reclining in a ragged-looking armchair and footrest. Ren, Ryhad and Caïn were in what appeared to Ren as the bottom left-most corner; Norhan and Cade were on the opposite starting square.

Ren’s heart sank. He had really, truly hoped that this time they might be able to work with other players.

“Well, now,” the Wolf Grandmother said, looking over them with those awful milky eyes. “Since you were all such clever children, you get to play in my game. Isn’t that nice? Won’t we all have so much _fun?_ ” The words were pushed out through gritted teeth. There was an air of ferocity to her now, her patchy fur bristling. “And since he revealed my secret, we’ll start with him.”

She brought out a die, at least as big as Ren’s head, that shone in the light before she threw it onto the ground in front of her. It toppled down the podium, and came to a stop: three black dots stared back at her.

“Three,” she called, and Ryhad walked to the third square. It was Neutral, so nothing happened, and the Wolf Grandmother moved to throw the die again.

“Are we…” Ren started, but his voice failed in the stillness that had fallen over the board; he had to try again. “Are we playing against each other?”

The Wolf Grandmother looked at him and smiled, showing off her fangs, ground down to small spikes with wear and tear. “No questions unless you’re on a Question square, dear.”

So that was no help, but Ryhad turned his head to say, “The set-up seems obvious enough.”

And it was, after all, but he wanted a different answer: he caught himself looking across the board and caught Norhan’s eye. Norhan smiled at him, shrugged, and said, “Sorry, kid. I won’t hold back, and you shouldn’t, either.”

That was that, then. Every man for himself — every fucking man for himself, like always, because the black towers hated them all and even when it seemed like they could work together, they’d just end up at each other’s throats for a chance at survival again. Ren hated it. There was no choice and he hated it.

Norhan’s turn was next: the Wolf Grandmother called out four squares, which put him on a Question square. Ears flicking, he looked at her and asked, “Can only one team win this game?”

The Wolf Grandmother looked down on him from her giant armchair. There was stuffing coming out of one armrest. “Who knows?” she said. “I’m just an isolated little grandmother: nobody tells me anything.”

They all looked at her to see if the tower was going to call her out for evading the question so shamelessly, but it didn’t. It stayed silent, and she didn’t add anything. With every second, this game seemed to warp further.

It was Ren’s turn next, and he advanced to the square behind Ryhad, which was equally Neutral. Just to see, he tried to stick his hand into Ryhad’s square, but there was an invisible barrier to stop him: upon experimentation, he found the entire square was closed off like that. Presumably they could only move when it was their turn. While Cade took her go, he said, “There’s something up with this game.”

“There is,” Ryhad agreed. “It seems to rely entirely on luck so far, which makes no sense. Possibly the difficulty is in surviving the punishments, but I can’t see what else it could be right now, since the questions are apparently useless. Just keep your eyes open, and get ready to activate your ability if you need to.”

“I’ve got that under control, thanks,” Ren said dryly as Ryhad moved forwards five squares. This, excitingly, was a Punishment square: he unsheathed the knitting needles in preparation.

The Wolf Grandmother leaned forwards in her armchair in anticipation and they all waited to see what would happen. Remembering the Blue Bird of Happiness, Ren readied himself for something horrible, and he jumped when there came a whistle through the air; Ryhad must have heard it too, and possibly more accurately, because he moved out of the way and so was not hit by the tiny airborne missile that had launched itself at him from somewhere. The Wolf Grandmother sighed in disappointment, and bent to pick up the die to roll again.

‘ _…wait, was that it?_ ’

Caïn was sitting down by Ren’s feet, and looked up at him, tail moving from side to side. ‘ _I believe so. The tower didn_ _’t say the punishments were lethal._ ’

‘ _Then what_ _’s the point of any of this if the questions aren’t worth anything and the punishments are a slap on the back of the wrist?_ ’

‘ _I_ _’m not sure. Let’s keep watching._ ’

With one square, Norhan moved to a Double square; on his second turn, he moved six and hit Neutral. Ren, still lagging behind, got another two, and got a Question square. He panicked.

‘ _What should I ask?_ ’

‘ _Ask if she_ _’s ever played this game before._ ’

With everyone else watching him, Ren looked up into the Wolf Grandmother’s eyes and said, “Have you ever played this game before?”

The others looked at him in surprise, which they were completely justified in doing, but none of them said anything. No one was saying anything except when they had to: it was so quiet here. Even the Wolf Grandmother took her time in answering — long enough that Ren started to regret asking at all. Hoping for back-up, he asked, ‘ _What was the point of that?_ ’

‘ _Oh, no real point. But it sounded like you knew what you were talking about, didn_ _’t it? A smokescreen, that’s all._ ’

Ren dearly wanted to look down to see if any emotion had made its way onto Caïn’s little fox face, but that would be suspicious, and after all, he had yet to receive an answer. On her podium, the Wolf Grandmother seemed to frown, but it was difficult to tell, since her face had always been pinched and harsh and wolfish.

“I haven’t,” she said. “I just love to play with little children, but nobody ever comes to visit me…” She faked a tear. “I expect you’re all honoured to be the first.”

Without giving the question any more thought, she rolled the massive die again and Cade was sent along five places. She too stood on a Question square: without blinking, she raised her head, stared the Wolf Grandmother dead in the eye and asked, “If you’re a Grandmother, where are your grandchildren?”

Blinking in surprise, the Wolf Grandmother sat up, and then made a half-hearted effort at an indulgent smile. “Why,” she said, “all children are my grandchildren.”

“No, they’re not.”

Norhan had apparently realised that his sister didn’t have much of a sense of self-preservation, and turned back to say something to her with his ears tilted back against his head, but before he could, the Wolf Grandmother insisted, “I am a Grandmother in spirit, little girl! Do be good and don’t vex me. Nice little girls don’t question their elders.”

“But you’re not a Grandmother at all.”

“And you won’t be _alive_ at all if you don’t keep your little mouth shut!” she snarled, leaning forwards in the chair as if she wanted to leap down and eat Cade right then and there. In an instant, Norhan had transformed and faced her, hackles raised, growling, but Cade did nothing. Behind a fringe of messy, straw-coloured curls, she glared at the Wolf Grandmother. Apparently there were rules against killing the players: after a few moments of heavy breathing through bared stubby teeth, the Wolf Grandmother sat back and threw the die into the ground.

“One,” she said, turning to look at Ryhad. “Go.”

Ren watched Ryhad advance onto a Neutral square, and remarked, ‘ _She got really angry, huh?_ ’

‘ _Well, she isn_ _’t an actual Grandmother, is she?_ ’

‘ _Because she_ _’s the wolf who killed the grandmother in the story?_ ’

‘ _Is that how the story goes? Yes, I suppose. By that logic, just like finding the bones revealed her secret, revealing her to be a wolf rather than a Grandmother might count as unmasking her._ ’

‘ _But Cade just did, basically._ ’

‘ _Clearly not in the right way._ ’

Norhan had taken his turn by now, to another Neutral square. It was not an eventful game, as they came. The Wolf Grandmother barked at Ren to move forwards four squares and he landed on the same Punishment square Ryhad had been on, and was hit by fairly strong winds for a few seconds. They weren’t even enough to unbalance him.

“Is that all?” he said out loud.

“I can throw something at you if you want,” Norhan called from the other end of the board, and lifted his hands up in surrender at the glare Ryhad shot him.

And then it was Cade’s turn again. The Wolf Grandmother rolled the die again, and it landed with a thud, showing four black dots. They could all see it, as they had been able to from the beginning: for a start, it was huge, and what was more, it had rolled to the bottom of the podium, in full view of all. With four steps, Cade would be one behind her brother, and on another Question square. She began to walk, but stopped when she saw the Wolf Grandmother lean down and, with a flick of her finger, turn the die so it showed a five instead.

“Five,” she said. “Go on.”

They all waited for the tower to say something. Surely this couldn’t be fair: they were fighting the Wolf Grandmother, and if she was allowed to choose their positions, they were at a serious disadvantage.

But the tower said nothing.

“Go on,” the Wolf Grandmother repeated, smile widening. “Only bad children refuse to play.”

Cade went to her brother; he put an arm around her and they all thought. The sheer amount of thinking going on in the clearing was palpable, like a haze all around them that said ‘this doesn’t make sense’.

Turns followed. Ryhad went forwards five squares to a Double square, and another three to a Punishment square that had virtually no effect on him at all. Norhan was sent forwards six squares, to Neutral, and Ren four, to Neutral. Cade went three to a Double, and when the Wolf Grandmother rolled the die again, it landed on a three, which would have sent her to the same square as her brother — would have, if the Wolf Grandmother had not then tipped it into a two, which sent her to a Punishment.

“You can’t do that,” Norhan said firmly, holding a hand out as if to warn his sister not to move. “You rolled a three.”

“I rolled a two, my dear,” the Wolf Grandmother said, gesturing at the die beneath her. “A strapping young boy like you shouldn’t have problems with your eyesight, not when your old Grandmother can see quite clearly. Go on, dear,” she said to Cade kindly. “It won’t hurt.”

As it happened, it probably did, but not much. With her still on it, the square rose up a metre or two, and then slammed down into the ground: at Norhan’s instruction, she jumped just as it came to a stop at the top, and landed more neatly more than she might have if she’d been taken by surprise. It can’t have made much difference either way: in their current bodies, damage like that would barely have registered. Everything about the game felt pointless and Ren was beginning to get restless. He couldn’t even feel any real urgency over the fact that both Norhan and Cade were closer to the centre than either he or Ryhad were, because it simply didn’t feel as if it mattered.

The Wolf Grandmother rolled again, and Ryhad moved three squares, to a Question square. He must have been waiting for it, because — leaning on one of the knitting needles nonchalantly — he asked, “Grandmother, why are your teeth so big?”

There was a pause, in which Caïn looked up at Ren and asked, ‘ _Is that from the story? Or did he just feel like launching an attack on her self-esteem?_ ’

‘ _Story, story_ ,’ Ren answered, but he wasn’t really paying attention. There was weighty anticipation over all of them now, because that sounded like the kind of answer the tower was probably looking for. They needed to unmask the Wolf Grandmother, so why not do it in the same way as in the original?

But she (frowning, her sinewy muscles straining), said, “That isn’t very nice, my good and clever child! Don’t say rude things, now.”

Ren couldn’t stand it. “Are you kidding me?” he shouted at her. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say!”

“Don’t be unpleasant,” the Wolf Grandmother recommended sweetly. “I don’t like bad children. If one of you is bad too many times, the black tower couldn’t blame me for disciplining you! It’s all for your own good. Now,” —she rolled the die— “One.”

‘ _This isn_ _’t right. This isn’t right!_ ’

‘ _No, it_ _’s not. What inconsistencies have we found so far? Let’s list them._ ’

Norhan had taken his turn, evidently as deep in thought as the rest of them, and it was Ren’s turn: at the Wolf Grandmother’s order, he moved forwards six squares to a Double, then another six on to a Neutral square.

‘ _The entire game_ _’s useless_ ,’ he said. ‘ _There_ _’s nothing we can do and she’s deciding everything._ ’

‘ _So what does that mean?_ ’

‘ _That everything she can decide doesn_ _’t matter?_ ’

‘ _Exactly._ ’

‘ _But that_ _’s…that includes the number of steps we can take. Doesn’t that matter?_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t think so,_ ’ Caïn said, his black eyes watching Cade move onto a Neutral square. ‘ _It can_ _’t, or the game wouldn’t be fair at all. I’d say that even when she — or you: you’re both quite close now — gets to the centre, nothing will happen. It’s just a matter of seeing what happens then._ ’

‘ _So the centre_ _’s a smokescreen._ ’

‘ _I think so._ ’

‘ _Are the Question squares smokescreens too?_ ’ Ren asked as Ryhad was sent along three squares to a Punishment that meant very little.

‘ _No._ ’

‘ _No?_ ’

‘ _No. She wasn_ _’t very happy, was she? With the last two questions, I mean. I think that’s a sign._ ’

‘ _Should I try asking about other body parts?_ ’

‘ _Does Little Red Riding Hood do that? Then yes, try it, but I_ _’m not sure she’ll let you near Questions squares again if you do._ ’

He didn’t have the chance: on the next roll, the Wolf Grandmother sent Norhan along six squares to a Double, leaving him two away from the centre. She rolled again: it was a three, and — cautiously — he walked onto the strip of non-square board with the podium and its basket piled high with baked goods. Nothing happened. He was inspecting the basket when the Wolf Grandmother said, “Don’t dilly-dally! I can’t stand lazy children. Move along: you’ve still got one more square.”

Norhan turned to look at her, tilting his head in puzzlement. “It doesn’t…end here?”

“Of course not! Did anyone say it did?”

No one had, no.

The square after the centre, encroaching on the side Ren had started on, was a Punishment square. Norhan stepped onto it with an air of distraction, as they were all distracted, and was thus taken by surprise when the square crumbled underneath him. The distraction hardened into urgency in an instant, and he just had the time to grab hold of the edges of the square before he fell. From where Ren was standing, he couldn’t see into the hole, but steam was rising, and Norhan’s expression was one of horrified concentration. Then it was just horror: another square paving stone had begun to push out of one side of the hole as if to take the old one’s place, and it was moving with a determination that did not seem likely to stop for a human body. Ren swore softly, and, across the board, he saw Cade try to run over, but she couldn’t get out of her square. It very obviously took all the strength Norhan had to let go of the edge with one hand, supporting his entire body weight with a few fingers, so he could manoeuvre himself until he was holding onto this new moving square. Then, muscles straining, he heaved himself onto it before it crushed him.

The stone slammed shut with a thud and a great shaking of the board; Norhan collapsed onto it, breathing heavily. Sweat glistened on his neck.

“Nor?”

He looked up, smiling for his sister. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he lied. “Guess I got a bad one.”

‘ _I don_ _’t think that was just a bad “one”,_ ’ Caïn remarked. Ren was about to answer, but before he could, the Wolf Grandmother called out, “Five.”

It took him across the centre. To be exact, it took him to the Punishment square just beyond the centre, and Ren realised he did not have a good feeling about stepping onto it. Sending an encouraging smile back to Ryhad’s steely expression, and then — when he passed him — to Norhan, he walked across the podium. Caïn followed him that far, but, prudently, didn’t follow him onto the square. As Ren walked onto it, he said aloud, “You might not want to watch this, but it’s going to be fine,” and motioned for Cade — a square in front of him now — to turn around. She did.

He wasn’t totally sure he’d have to, but he activated his ability anyway, keeping it activated like keeping a muscle tensed, and was rewarded, in a manner of speaking. Once he was totally within the square, there was a low buzzing sound. It whined and wailed, rising high like the drone of a hedge-trimmer — it was upon making that comparison that Ren realised what was about to happen, and panicked. He’d have run if there had been anywhere to run, but there was nowhere: he had to stand there and face it when a slit opened in the bottom of the square, spanning across the diagonal in such a way that only a young child could have clung to the edge and barely been touched, and something like an electric saw rose up.

It was slow. Ren did try to hug the invisible wall of the square’s boundary, but the saw caught his left calf in its ascension anyway, and even with heightened pain resistance, he cried out and had to bite his lip to not cry out again. It ate through him cleanly, slicing up skin and muscle as if they were no resistance at all, and there was no space to move out of the way. Now, his mind was only pain: he didn’t know what to do, because he could revive, but he’d realised that this was going to be a slow death, if it was a death at all, and he was terrified. His heartbeat was hammering in his pulse, in his fragile ribcage: he realised he really was scared stiff. None of his deaths had ever been slow before. What if he didn’t die and the pain didn’t stop? His world had sharpened down to the roar of the saw, the thrum of blood in his ears, the scarlet of blood below him as the saw shaved off his flesh, eating its way up higher, and he—

‘ _I_ _’m sorry, but you have to shove your head into it — your forehead; or the side if you can’t look._ ’

The instructions were clear inside his head, and he could have believed they were his own thoughts. He was held together only shakily with string and unstuck tape, and the order pulled him back into something with a purpose. It already hurt so badly he couldn’t bear another second: shouting, “Don’t look!” he did as Caïn had said.

 

 

Everything was quiet when he came to. Caïn was nuzzling his cheek, and it was as if the agony of the saw was all a bad dream, replaced by soft fur against his skin. He was lying in blood, though.

Groggily, he sat up and took Caïn into his arms; Caïn licked at the blood on his face, wiping back his hair with a paw, and as Ren tried to get a grip on being alive again, he heard, ‘ _I really am sorry about that._ ’

‘ _Not your fault._ ’

‘ _You might want to explain for the others. Cade didn_ _’t turn around, luckily._ ’

Ren could vaguely — only vaguely — remember Norhan yelling at her not to, for which he was glad. Looking up, he saw she was watching him now, bright eyes wide open in shock.

“Sorry,” he said, and directed the same to the other two; Norhan’s expression was that of total sobriety, and he didn’t seem able to talk. “I didn’t know how to get out of it otherwise.”

“Are you alright now?” Ryhad asked.

“Yeah, same as always.” He got up, Caïn in his arms, and almost overbalanced, but managed to stay upright.

The Wolf Grandmother snorted. Apparently she’d been hooked: she sat back in her seat now, and said, “What a shame.”

“Fuck off,” Norhan said loyally. “Ren, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah — better by the second, really!”

But it was Cade’s turn next, and out of the six possible squares she could move to, two were Punishment squares. Ren didn’t know if the fact that both of them were currently occupied would change anything, but he wasn’t sure he’d put it past the Wolf Grandmother. She was leering down at them, picking up and rolling the die with obvious glee. It landed on a two, which would have left Cade in the centre, but the Wolf Grandmother clearly didn’t care for that: she turned it so it showed a three.

“There,” she said. “Isn’t that nice? The siblings can be together.”

Rage boiled on Norhan’s expression: ears and tail standing right up, he looked about to yell at her, but the black tower spoke before he could.

“Ding dong! Two players cannot occupy the same Punishment square. Please roll again!”

The Wolf Grandmother clicked her tongue and rolled again, but this was a four, which would have put Cade on a Question square, so she evidently gave up and allowed it to be a two after all. There was absolutely no doubt that she would try that trick again, and the tower might allow it next time. More to the point, even the adults’ survival of Punishment squares beyond the centre wasn’t guaranteed anymore. It was beginning to feel like a tower game.

Ryhad’s roll put him in the centre as well. Norhan’s sent him to a Neutral square, and to everyone’s evident shock, Ren’s was five squares along, to a Question square, and the Wolf Grandmother didn’t change it.

‘ _I think it_ _’s a “one strike, you’re out” sort of thing,_ ’ Caïn explained. ‘ _You haven_ _’t upset her yet. You very much will right now, but you haven’t yet._ ’

‘ _But I should upset her?_ ’

‘ _Yes, absolutely. I think it would be unwise to give her another chance at putting Cade on a Punishment square._ ’

He stepped into the right square, and paused, thinking. ‘ _Stop me if this is just wishful thinking, but the tower never said we were actually in teams, did it?_ ’

There was a smile in Caïn’s voice. ‘ _It didn_ _’t, no._ ’

The problem with having the Wolf Grandmother roll for them was that there was no time to breathe. She set the pace and the only real time they could buy was in making it through punishments or thinking of questions: Ren took advantage of the latter here by turning to the others and saying, “We’ve got to work together.”

None of them reacted right away. Then Ryhad, taking a step forwards, said, “Ren, you need to—”

“No, no, seriously. The tower never said this was a team game. And you said in the last game,” —he pointed at Norhan— “games don’t just switch halfway through usually, right?”

Norhan’s tail was flicking back and forth in discomfort. “You’re basing this on something I said randomly? Look, Ren, I don’t want to compete against you either, but sometimes games are just like that.”

“They are!” the Wolf Grandmother cooed happily. “They are, and now—”

“Nobody asked you!” Ren shouted back at her.

She froze; then, her expression twisted into something vengeful and ugly, her entire body straining to leap out of the chair. “Watch what you say, brat.”

“No!” Ren rounded on her. “I’m not going to! This entire game, you’ve been playing with us, and it hasn’t even been _clever_ : you’re not even playing the game! You’re just cheating! So no, you can shut up now, and the rest of you listen to what I think is going on, because I might not be right about everything, but I’m positive that we have to work together.”

There must really have been a rule against killing any player who hadn’t actively broken a rule, because the Wolf Grandmother did not leap down to rip his throat out. She seethed in place, and Ren didn’t care, because he’d already died once here. Turning back to the others, he listened to the hints Caïn gave him, and said, “The only thing that matters are the Question squares. If speed or anything like that mattered, the tower would have stopped her cheating, but it didn’t. And…and she stopped you two asking questions, but that’s because you came close to unmasking her, which is what we’re supposed to do. We basically have four chances to get it right before she won’t let us answer any questions anymore, and at that point we’ve probably lost. We’re _supposed_ to work together, but it makes us think we’re not because then we won’t communicate!”

“Would you shut your _fucking_ mouth?!” the Wolf Grandmother roared, on all fours now, growling like the rumble before a missile launch.

Ren stared her down and shouted back, “No way!” before turning back to the others, all but begging them to see his side of it. “You get it, right? Doesn’t this make sense?”

“I think it works,” Norhan said. He’d fully recovered from his Punishment square by now, and was looking at Ren with decided interest, a smile growing on his face.

“By that logic we have to unmask her through a question,” Ryhad said. “What question? I’ve thought, but I can’t see anything that would work better than the questions from the fairy-tale: she,” —he shot a withering look at the Wolf Grandmother, still snarling at them in a state of unparalleled fury— “hated being told she isn’t a real biological grandmother, which suggests we’re supposed to prove she’s a wolf, and I did, but we’re still here.”

Ren was stumped on that one too, until Caïn quietly solved the problem for him. “You didn’t, though!” he said, pointing at the livid Wolf Grandmother. “You asked about her teeth, and her teeth aren’t that big.”

They all turned to see her: since she was snarling, the row of small points was on show until she realised what they were doing and tried to cover them.

“So it could still work! What should I ask for?” He turned to the others. “Like, what would you say is her most inhuman feature?”

“Everything,” Norhan said unhelpfully.

“Fur,” Cade said firmly. Ryhad glanced at her, and nodded in agreement.

So Ren turned to the Wolf Grandmother’s wild, white-streaked eyes, and said, “Grandmother, this is my question: why do you have so much fur?”

“Ding dong!” sang the black tower. “The Wolf Grandmother has been 50% unmasked. Please remove her disguise!”

The invisible barriers fell. The humans, who had not been expecting it, were taken by surprise; the Wolf Grandmother was not. She leapt from the podium, spittle flying from her snarling jaws, and hurled herself at Ren,  who barely had the time to call out Divine Retribution before she had her jagged teeth around his left arm. There was a burst of pain: yelling in surprise, he tried to shoot a chain up through her palate and out the top of her muzzle, but her bones were stronger than concrete, and the first try failed. He didn’t get to try a second time: biting down with force that shook his whole body, she cracked the bones of his forearm and wrenched his arm off at the elbow.

Blood and pain exploded: he grabbed at the stump, screaming, “Jesus _fuck!_ ” and looked up to see Ryhad shoving a knitting needle through the Wolf Grandmother’s eye. Milky white vomited red, and she knocked him away with devastating force, howling loud enough to deafen them all; no sooner had she rebalanced than another, slightly smaller, wolf launched himself at her side, ripping into her matted fur and flesh with his fangs.

‘ _Remove her disguise_ ,’ Caïn said firmly, overriding all other noise battling for Ren’s attention. ‘ _It_ _’ll be the night-dress, or the bonnet._ ’

He didn’t know how he was supposed to get close enough for that. His arm was still screaming at him, his body cramping up with the shock waves of pain, but even if he had been in top condition, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to find a gap in the brawl between the Wolf Grandmother, Norhan (now heavily-bitten) and Ryhad (strongly favouring his left side). In the second or two of deliberation, he saw the Wolf Grandmother lash out, knocking Norhan to the side with claws that tore across his back, and make an attempt for Ryhad’s neck in the same movement; without thinking, Ren shot his one remaining chain out to wrap around her own neck and pull her back. When she realised, she struggled — it took all the strength he had to hold her, and even then he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to do it for. It should have been so easy to whip off the bonnet, but the other two men had their hands more than full with just keeping the Wolf Grandmother busy.

If this was the strength of a third floor monster, Ren didn’t want to think about going up to floor seven.

“Can you hold her?”

Ren jerked his head up to see Cade looking at him. It wasn’t really the time to ask questions or express worries about his own rapidly-failing physical ability: he nodded, because if he had to, he’d hold her in place. Cade nodded back, and — seemingly without hesitation, ran towards the chaos in front of them.

The Wolf Grandmother saw her coming: she strained against the chain holding her, her one eye wild with rage, but Ren dug his heels in, crying out with the effort it took, with the pain of losing an arm. The other two had noticed: together, they attacked the Wolf Grandmother at the same time, dealing just enough damage to take her mind off Cade, who jumped, landed on the Wolf Grandmother’s massive head, and ripped the bonnet off.

“Ding dong! The Wolf Grandmother has been unmasked. At 17:02 on December 30th, 2017, Europe District 193 official players Ren Delacroix, Ryhad Dalisirene, and stowaways Norhan Eppalai and Cade Eppalai have successfully cleared the third floor and won the reward ‘Little Red Riding Hood’s Cape’.”

The second they were back on Earth, Ren dropped to his knees, hugged his stump of an arm, and swore loudly. It was partly because of the pain and partly because he’d just lost his fucking arm and with it one of his chains, and—

Wait, no, he could fix this: he just needed someone else.

Looking around him desperately, he located Ryhad, standing with him under the shadow of the black tower. The others were there but that didn’t matter right now: Ren said, “This _really_ fucking hurts: kill me so it regenerates.”

Ryhad looked at him like he was mad. “I’m not…I’m not going to kill you for—”

“You’ve done it before, don’t act like you’ve got standards! I’ve died twice in a day before and it was totally fine, I swear, so _please_ : I need my arm! You know I do!”

Ryhad still seemed to hesitate; he was wasting precious seconds that Ren could be living in not-agony, so he was about to argue for it again when Caïn suggested, ‘ _Try telling him how good he was at killing you the last time, that it was the best death you_ _’ve had — I feel like he’d be susceptible to that._ ’

“That time you killed me was better than any of the others!” Ren said obediently. “It was totally fine — _please!_ ’

Perhaps it was that argument, perhaps the stress of having someone begging to be killed at his feet: whatever it was, Ryhad got to his knees, unsheathed a knitting needle, said, “If you don’t revive, I’ll never forgive you for this,” and stabbed him.

It was neat, clean, and effective. Within two seconds, the pain had begun to fade; in another, everything turned to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: poll time! what was the best part about this floor  
> mirenwe: the power of teamwork  
> adam: wolf rights  
> jiirva: my favourite being audacious  
> hosgard: all good answers and all wrong! the correct answer is of course, my husband. now! what was the most disgusting part of this floor's decor?  
> mirenwe: worms and cockroaches  
> adam: mould  
> jiirva: your husband  
> hosgard: die in a fire, jiirva


	14. friends are like cockroaches. you can't get rid of them and they drastically lower your real estate value

Yushu, China.

Two women were running through abandoned streets. One of them was struggling. Einierre wasn’t cut out for running: she had decided very early on that it wasn’t for her, and she fiercely resented anything or anyone who forced her to do it.

Other things she resented: purposefully cryptic black tower instructions, the air of abject hostility that floated around the world nowadays, the necessity of hiding from people who might want to kill you for your props.

The man who was currently chasing them had been the cause of two of these, and she didn’t forgive him.

“Over here!”

Vike’s voice cut up the monotony of their footsteps, their breath, and the uncalled-for fear that came with being chased: she grabbed Einierre’s hand and they turned down a narrow, dingy alleyway. It wasn’t what Einierre would have chosen, but she didn’t have the danger-sensing ability (or any ability at all, really), so she wasn’t going to say a thing. Not that she could have anyway — she was far too out of breath for that — but the point was that she followed obediently, ignoring the stitch in her side, and they ran towards the threatening shape of the local black tower.

This was the best solution they’d come to. The man had been tailing them for some days: he’d followed them at a distance since the last city, and had begun in earnest ever since they’d got to Yushu. They didn’t know what he wanted from them, and it was entirely possible that he was just very bad at stealth and thought they hadn’t noticed him, but they weren’t about to stick around and find out. When, that morning, Vike had caught the bitter scent of danger he brought with him too close to their hideout, they’d decided enough was enough. They had no interest in killing him, and quite honestly just didn’t want to bother with him.

By the time they made it to the black tower, Einierre had to be dragged by her girlfriend just to keep moving, but (crucially) they did actually make it. There was a pair of teenagers nearby, clearly taken aback by their sudden appearance, but there was no time to worry about that: Einierre waved to them in an exhausted way, and once under the black tower’s shadow, attacked it. Everything went white.

“Ding dong! The black tower’s third floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Welcome to the Mountain of the Immortal Master. Please clear the mountain of Resuscitated Corpses!”

“Oh shit, nice.”

Both women turned around to see that they weren’t alone in the forest. Standing a little apart from them among the tall trees was a man — just taller than Einierre, which really wasn’t saying much, wearing a heavy parka that only made him look smaller. This might have been his intention: he was baby-faced, but even allowing for that must have been in his late twenties at least, and yet wore his hair (dyed a sunny blonde) in an even fringe across his forehead, as if angling for an air of youth. He didn’t look fully Chinese, and was probably mixed. They had never got a good look at the man chasing them, but there seemed no reason to doubt this was him, especially since he was currently grinning at them.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Einierre spat, still out of breath.

“What, not happy it’s Resuscitated Corpses? I guess the cultivation genre isn’t for everyone.”

“I’m not happy because you’re here!”

Before Einierre could start a fight in record time, Vike stepped in by stepping in front of her, to shield her. “Sorry, but you did sort of follow us in here,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind terribly, but we can’t exactly trust you — not that I want you to think we’re like this normally, I think we’re usually very nice people, but it’s just that there have been quite a lot of people who want to kill us and take our props, you see…” She trailed off, and Einierre couldn’t see, since Vike was in front of her, but they’d been together for a long time and she was almost certain Vike was biting her lip nervously.

The man hadn’t let his smile drop once. It sat on his face as comfortably as a cat on a sunny porch in summer, and now widened. It didn’t look entirely friendly.

“That’s alright,” he said. “I’m not here for your props. I just want to see what kind of player you have to be to attack the tower first.”

In the distance, a breeze began to slip through the trees, shaking up the stiff, humid air. With it came a far-off groan that reminded Einierre of zombie films; with it came others, and — unlike zombies — they were approaching rapidly.

“So.” The man tilted his head, letting his fringe fall over one eye. “My name’s Acqen. How about we clear this floor together so I can see if you’re worth keeping around?”

 

 

Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

It turned out that Ren needn’t have died the second time after all.

“I’d have told you if you hadn’t been in such a rush,” Norhan said pleasantly while his sister applied grains of sand to his back. The Wolf Grandmother had done a number on him: long claw marks raked down his shoulder blades, raw, red and messy, but healing rapidly, largely thanks to the sand. This was a prop, and he was demonstrating it: when pressed to an open wound, each grain of sand shivered and expanded to reconstruct part of the lost flesh.

 

[Prop: 1001 Grains of Sand]

[Owner: Norhan Eppalai (stowaway)]

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None]

[Function: Once pressed to a wound, the grain of sand will reconstitute the lost physical matter.]

[Restriction: One grain can reconstitute up to 0.5cm3.]

[Remarks: If you use all 1001, will you be more sand than human?]

 

“Honestly, I didn’t even think.” Ren laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “We’ve never found any healing props so I kind of assumed you wouldn’t have any either.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ryhad make an expression of pained exasperation and realised only then that he’d let slip some fairly valuable information about them. To cover it up, he laughed again, nervously this time, and said, “But anyway, I’d feel bad using so much of the sand! It would have taken a _lot_ to make my whole arm, right?”

“Yeah, but compared to dying…?”

“Oh, I’m used to that.”

Cade said something to her brother to let him know she was finished. It was only after they’d left the tower that it had become apparent that there were translation systems within the game so all players could understand each other. Outside, they were on their own. By some stroke of luck, Norhan spoke French fluently, having been educated in France, but his sister hadn’t. Norhan had laughingly explained it away as their father wanting to keep her close by him while she grew up; the end result was that she’d been taught English rather than French as a second language, and even then, she wasn’t very talkative. Turning back around, Norhan pulled her onto his lap and ruffled her hair, saying something softly back.

The third floor reward had been disappointing.

 

[Prop: Little Red Riding Hood’s Cape]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 1]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: Once worn, the wearer will blend into the background and have an 80% chance of not being noticed by any pursuers.]

[Restrictions: Effect lasts for 1 minute at a time.]

[Remarks: At this point you might be better running away.]

 

After they’d all checked it, they’d left the black tower to find a more enclosed space in which to talk and recover from the significant damage the Wolf Grandmother had left on them. Now, they were in yet another abandoned house, and it was mostly gloomy because they hadn’t found any candles, but Ren’s night vision had improved in the past month or so, and he could see fine. He was sitting on a large carpet with Caïn sleeping on him, and Norhan was opposite. His wolf ears and tail had disappeared upon leaving the black tower: he said the effect must have worn off, and wouldn’t be back until he used his ability for more than an hour again. So now he looked totally normal, though also bereft of a shirt because he’d had to take it off for his back.

“I was wondering about that, actually,” he said, absent-mindedly checking his sister’s arms for scratches. “That’s your ability, yeah? The reviving thing.”

“Yeah! We don’t know how many times I can do it each day but it’s at least two.”

“Ren.”

“What?” Guilt rushed through him as Ryhad’s remonstration reminded him he probably ought to keep quiet about some things. He turned his head around to see Ryhad where he was bandaging up his own side, having refused the sand. As much to justify it to himself as to others, Ren said, “He’s already told us his ability, right? I’m just making things equal, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to: if he wants to tell everyone about his ability, he’s welcome to, but that doesn’t mean we’re obliged to reciprocate.”

Norhan hissed in a mock-wounded way, and smiled. “Ice cold. Come on, join in: what about you? You’re an official player, right?”

Ryhad turned an (ice) cold eye to him. “What about your sister? She’s a stowaway too, isn’t she?” he countered dryly.

“Ah, I can’t go telling you about my sister’s ability.” Apparently satisfied that she didn’t have any major injuries, he let her go and she sat on the carpet next to him, eyes glued to Caïn’s sleeping form. While the other two bickered, Ren beckoned her over and, figuring that Caïn probably wouldn’t mind because he rarely minded anything, gestured to let her know she could stroke him if she wanted to. She shot a quick look at him to check he was serious, and then she focused on petting Caïn respectfully.

“He really is a fox, huh.”

Ren looked up at Norhan and nodded. “Does he look like something else?”

“Nah, I was just wondering if he was a monster, but to be fair he doesn’t act like one. He doesn’t bite, right?”

“He’s never bitten me,” Ren said, latching onto that to avoid acknowledging the monster thing. Turning around again, he asked, “He’s never bitten you, has he?”

“No, he’s very well-trained,” Ryhad said generously.

“Where are you headed next, anyway?”

Ren turned back to Norhan, trying to work out how much he would likely be allowed to say. “Kind of a long way,” he said in the end. “Looking for my sister: she was abroad, and I don’t know if she’s still around, but we’ve got to try, right?”

“Oh yeah, totally, totally.” He nodded, retying his mini ponytail. “Do you think we could tag along?”

“Why would you want to do that?” Ryhad asked icily before Ren could reply. He’d finished with the bandages and now came back into the room they were in, towering above them, expression firmly closed to all entreaty. “The more high-level players there are in one team, the harder the games are. You’d be shooting yourselves and us in the foot.”

“We got through that floor just fine.”

“Ren lost an arm.”

“And got it back! Oh, no offence,” he said quickly to Ren, who hadn’t taken any.

Ryhad wasn’t finished. “Surely you have your own family and friends to look for.”

“Not really.” He shrugged, smiling. “Our dad cut off most of his family before he got rich, so we basically only had him, and he’s gone now. I looked, but I couldn’t find any friends left after most of the planet disappeared. I guess you’ve got to expect that: like seven billion people went missing. So, just to put all my cards on the table if that’ll make you feel better, I want to clear the tower floors as fast as possible. I want to see what’s past the seventh floor, and it got to the point where I thought it’d be better to team up. I don’t care if it’s harder: you need teams to survive these days. It’s not just the tower games now, because you’ve got all those scavengers out hunting for props, and I don’t want to end up on the wrong side of that lot, so I figured I should find someone to team up with, and if I’m at it anyway, I might as well try the other strongest players in this zone. And here you are. So I want to come with, if you’re cool with it.”

“Oh yeah, I’m cool with…” Ren started enthusiastically but trailed off when he saw Ryhad’s expression.

“A word.”

Norhan didn’t seem to take offence, and in fact seemed to have expected this: he gestured that they should absolutely go and talk it over. Caïn was awake by this time, and got off Ren’s thigh graciously so he could get up; he nuzzled Cade’s hand briefly, but followed Ren and Ryhad when they left the room.

To be on the safe side, they went up to the first floor, eventually settling on the space outside a bedroom. Ren didn’t want to go inside it, and turned his back on the door, waiting to be admonished.

It came: “We can’t team up with them. They could be dangerous.”

“Well, you could have been too.”

“Clearly I wasn’t,” Ryhad said exasperatedly.

“Maybe he isn’t, then.”

“But you don’t know that.”

“I didn’t know with you either.”

“But I wasn’t dangerous.”

‘ _You know, I think I_ _’m getting déjà vu,_ ’ Caïn said pleasantly from Ren’s feet. ‘ _I_ _’m glad he’s the one fighting this pointless battle this time._ ’

‘ _You think we should team up?_ ’

‘ _I think I_ _’ve stopped caring, and you’re powerful enough to protect yourself, and he’ll likely protect you too, and either way you want friends._ ’

“Ren, could you pay attention?”

“Right, sorry!” He looked up at the other man’s face, and tried to sum up his feelings towards this problem as succinctly as he could. “I just want to work with other people. I want to like…prove it works. And I think he’s nice, and he’s got his little sister with him, so that’s not dangerous, right?”

Ryhad was still frowning, as he seemed to do in perpetuity. “You all but told him that if he kills you once more today, you’ll die for real.”

“Yeah, but most people would, right? And we don’t _know_ I’m only allowed two a day, and anyway, even if I didn’t manage to, you’d stop him, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would.”

“There we go, then.” He spread his hands as if to show how easy it was. There was very little light, but the shadows across Ryhad’s face were gentle enough to see sternness turn to weariness.

“Get out your shell,” he said. “I haven’t lied to you in the past hour, and we haven’t spoken to anyone else: check he’s telling the truth.”

Whisper of the Sea was as obliging as ever: for the low, low price of Ren confessing that he actually really hated a TV show all his other friends liked and had just played along to avoid awkwardness, it told them that no one had lied in the past hour.

Ryhad seemed almost disappointed. Turning to walk down the creaking stairs again, he said, “One game. They can stay with us for one game, and then we’ll see.”

Norhan was pleased with the news but also seemed to have expected this would happen. He thanked them, Cade was allowed to hold Caïn on her lap, and the five of them settled down to wait for sunlight to allow them to keep driving east. In the meantime, Ren handed out chewable toothbrushes and made it that clear everyone was to use them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [shhh. everyone is taking a nap]


	15. requiem for the two exams i have tomorrow that i decided were less important than this (because i don't want to study)

On January 1st, 2018, the black tower spoke thusly:

“Ding dong! The black tower version 2.0 new rules are as follows.

“First: reality instances have opened. Now the players can freely enjoy the delight of the tower games on Earth. All players please explore this feature on their own.

“Second: every player must attack the tower once every two months. Players who fail to comply will be forced to enter. This rule will be enforced on January 19th, 2018.”

These rules were repeated three times in a row. Then,

“Ding dong! 214.09 million players have successfully loaded the game…

“Game saving…

“The player data is loading…

“Save successful…

“Loaded successfully…

“Ding dong! On January 1st, 2018, the black tower version 2.0 has officially launched. Players are welcome to enter the game.

“Please try to attack the tower!”

Everyone heard this broadcast. Those waiting by the black towers saw the lights flashing as each player loaded the game. Those who could remember the initial broadcast processed the loss of over 200 million players in their own way. These were games that weeded out the weak or unwilling. It could not be helped. This rate of population decrease would not stay steady: now there were fewer weak players, more of this batch would survive to the next update, if there was to be another update.

 

 

It was deemed too risky to continue through Ukraine right away. Ren and the others decided to stay put for a day or two to make sure the reality instances wouldn’t pose too much of a threat; this led to a lot of boredom, a lot of card games, and a lot of going out into the city both to scavenge clothes and food which they did need at least a little of, and to scout out instances. Norhan was the most successful in this, since he managed to find some players who spoke English and they told him things: that reality instances had opened up, that he should avoid this or that location, that they weren’t like normal instances. They trapped you: if you walked into the rough vicinity of one, you would be caught, and wouldn’t be able to get out until you’d completed the instance.

“Apparently the difficult level is about the same as normal instances, though,” he reported cheerfully. To Ren, who had been through both the Blue Bird of Happiness and Grandma instances, that didn’t mean much.

‘ _I think you just have spectacularly bad luck,_ ’ Caïn said. ‘ _In choosing instances, I mean. Excellent luck otherwise, since you_ _’ve been running into quite deadly games but keep coming out alive._ ’

‘ _I guess you can_ _’t chalk that up to skill?_ ’

‘ _Not yet, no,_ ’ was the pleasant reply. ‘ _Give yourself a little more time. You_ _’re observant, though: I’ll give you that._ ’

From anyone else it would have sounded like a begrudging compliment nested in a put-down, but from Caïn, it was a neutral assessment of his ability, so Ren didn’t take offence. He knew he wasn’t great at games. If his current progress hadn’t told him that, the amount of card game losses he’d racked up over the past three days would have. It was a good thing Norhan’s joking suggestion that they gamble with props had been instantly shut down by Ryhad, or he’d be down to Divine Retribution alone.

On January 4th, 2018, they left for Kiev. The capital sounded like it would be well sign-posted at least, and bound to have a black tower, and it was in the right direction: it was as good a destination as any. They found another car with enough petrol, loaded everything into it, including new towels at Ren’s insistence, in case they came across a body of water.

“Have you always been this much of a clean freak?” Norhan asked as they climbed into the car. He’d accepted that he would not be allowed to drive, and was sitting shotgun.

“I don’t think you have to be a clean freak to want to shower sometimes.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we really need to anymore. It’s amazing what the tower’s done to us all.”

“I still think we should have, like…standards.”

‘ _Admirable of you, I_ _’m sure._ ’

Norhan made a hum of interest as they turned down onto a main road. “You must have been popular with girls back in school. You were in school, right?”

“I’m nineteen!”

“What is university if not another kind of school?” Norhan asked philosophically.

“There’s a difference!” Leaning forwards in his seat, he said, “You can’t be that far out of uni anyway, right? How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“You never are.”

“I am, I am!” He turned to grin back at Ren. “Do I look that young to you? Aw, I’m flattered.”

He didn’t, really. Now that Ren had the number in mind, he decided Norhan did in fact look to be in his mid- to late-twenties. The stubble helped: it seemed to have stayed constant the entire time they’d been together, and it was likely that their hair growth had been held in stasis with the rest of their bodies’ changes. It was enough to make you forget what it was to live normally.

‘ _Oh, don_ _’t be so pessimistic about it. Would you want to have to shave daily in a world like this?_ ’

Ren ignored him, because he had a point.

“How old are you, anyway?” Norhan turned back around to ask Ryhad, because days had passed but he’d never once seemed to take Ryhad’s perpetual coldness to heart.

They were moving onto a deserted motorway now, and it seemed at first that Ryhad wouldn’t answer, but eventually he replied. “I’m twenty-four.”

“I _knew_ you were younger than me.”

“It’s not like I look older than you.”

With so little traffic, it took them no time to get on the E40 and start driving through the countryside. Driving before had afforded Ren far too much time to ruminate, but this was different: Norhan seemed born to talk, and in the back, Ren showed off his inventory of props to Cade, who seemed to have a vested interest in the things. She was always careful with them, but looked at them like she was recording each prop and each function into a little internal notebook. Caïn slept on both of them.

They shouldn’t really have expected to get to Kiev without incident. It was a full day’s drive, for a start, and this was the black tower version 2.0. After three hours of driving, the car failed.

“I thought we specifically picked this one because it had a full tank,” Norhan commented, leaning over to see the fuel gauge.

Ryhad pushed his head away. “We did. There’s nothing wrong with the car. It just stopped.”

Caïn yawned, padding over the back seats to look up at Ren. ‘ _Get ready for something._ ’

Even without the warning, he’d realised something was up — they all had. He got out when Ryhad did, looking around the forested area they were stopped in. In the distance was the looming figure of a black tower, breaking up the skyline. Closer to them was a mass of cars on the other side of the road, like ants crowding at the entrance to a nest, but none were moving. They were all empty; just beyond the road boundary was a thick forest.

Ren and Ryhad looked at each other.

“This is definitely an instance, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can we avoid it?”

“Don’t think so,” Norhan called from his side. They turned to see him smiling apologetically. “I just tried the other side of the road and there’s a border up.”

They tried to walk further up the road in both directions, but it was as he’d said: invisible boundaries gently pushed them back.

‘ _Looks like you got yourself into a reality instance,_ ’ Caïn said, trotting up to Ren. ‘ _Isn_ _’t that fun? Let’s hope this one isn’t as lethal as every other one you’ve been in._ ’

‘ _Let_ _’s hope…_ ’

It seemed the only thing they could do, so — armed with their props — they walked towards the forest. The further they walked, the more the scenery changed. A perfectly decent forest began to tighten and grow taut, like a spring pulled to its limits. Trees thinned out and narrowed, becoming as tall as houses and then drooping, vines and leaves hanging from them like they were weeping willows. It was still daytime, but even for Ukraine in winter, the temperature began to drop. Within ten minutes, it had begun to snow.

“Does anyone else feel like we get a lot of forests? This is like…my fourth.”

“Just be grateful it’s not like the third floor,” Norhan recommended.

The roots of the trees began to protrude from the forest floor, forming hollows where the snow pooled. Caïn began to have trouble hopping over them, they came so far out of the ground: Ren picked him up and carried him. In another five minutes, Cade was struggling: Norhan was already wearing a bag so he lifted her into his arms and carried her that way. The snow fell heavier and heavier. It became difficult to see; Ryhad was leading them but with no tower instructions and no idea who they were heading towards, he couldn’t use his ability. The snow muffled all sound, so they all noticed when there was a great flapping to the right.

The entire party stopped and tensed and thus were almost ready for the flock of bats that tumbled through the trees, towards them. There was no time to attack, not when the bats were so small and so fast: they descended, there was a flurry of confusion, and then the bats were gone again, too quickly for the humans to have really done anything.

They looked at each other. Ren bit his lip. “So, uh,” he said, “did anyone else get bitten?”

“You too, huh?” Norhan said sheepishly.

Ryhad sheathed the knitting needle he’d apparently been about to use before the bats had disappeared. “I did too. I don’t think that’s a good sign.”

Only Caïn and Cade, who had both been shielded during the momentary attack, had come out unbitten. The bites themselves weren’t anything special: they were just small red dots like spider bites. Caïn sniffed Ren’s and said he couldn’t sense anything very terrible about it; they waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. The snow continued to fall: when Ren sneezed, they decided to keep going. It wasn’t the tower’s style to fuck them over in the first stages of a game, before any instructions had even been given. It was probably fine.

Within a minute of walking, the forest receded to reveal a castle. It had not been there before: there was no way they could have missed a stone castle towering above the trees, but here it was, ready and waiting with stairs leading up to the double entrance doors. There were signs of candlelight in some of the windows. They all exchanged looks.

“So it’s highly likely we’ll be meeting a vampire in here,” Ryhad said, walking up the stairs. “Be ready for it.”

It didn’t really matter, in the end, how ready for it they were or not. With just one hit of the brass door-knocker, the heavy wooden door flew open and a young man appeared. He might have been younger than Ren, with curling blonde hair and a black, fur-trimmed cape that fit snugly around his neck and fell to his feet.

“Welcome!” he said happily. “Come in, come in: it’s awfully cold, isn’t it? My name’s Dracula and this is my castle — you’re quite welcome. Come in!”

Norhan blinked at him. “You know what, I’m thinking we’d better not go in after all.”

“Oh no, you should come in.”

“Nah, I feel like we’re actually fine—”

“Come in,” Dracula said, showing fangs.

They went inside. The tower still hadn’t said anything, and it was better than walking around in the snow. Ren gave a small sigh of relief when the door shut behind them and warmth engulfed them. There was a massive obsidian fireplace in the entrance hall, complete with a roaring fire; as if that wasn’t enough, two metal chandeliers hung like spiders from the rafters, and everything was either stone or polished wood that reflected the flickering light of the fire. It was very Gothic, Ren thought, but then again, he’d never been that interested in interior design.

‘ _Have we just made a mistake?_ ’ he asked, looking around him.

‘ _I don_ _’t think so. Maybe. Let’s see._ ’

“You know what I think we all need?” Dracula asked, clapping his hands together. “A nice house tour. Let’s have a house tour.”

They had a house tour. It was an odd castle: Ren hadn’t been in many castles, but he was pretty sure they weren’t all smaller on the inside, and this one very much was. There was the giant entrance hall, but after a winding flight of stairs, there was only one more floor, and only one corridor, too. On one side was a row of doors; on the other, a row of windows that seemed to look out onto a red-tinted wasteland rather than the snowy forest it rightfully should have. Dracula didn’t mention that part: he focused on the doors.

“So this is the music room,” he said in the voice of a new homeowner showing off the premises as he opened the first door to reveal a respectable music room with a giant organ attached to the opposite wall. “It’s nice, isn’t it? And this one’s a bathroom.” Without another thought to the music room, he slammed the door shut and opened the next one. Out of it came the pungent smell of fresh paint. The entire thing seemed to have been white-washed, surfaces gleaming, and Dracula stood well back from the door while they peered in.

“It’s just been finished,” he said, shutting the door. “I can’t stand the paint smell, but the Seven Dwarves assure me it’ll fade soon. Isn’t redecorating a nuisance?” He laughed alone.

So followed several other rooms. In order, they were: a library that did not seem as if it should have fitted in the room it had been given; a newly-painted office with doors on the sides that didn’t seem as if they could have gone anywhere; a bedroom cast in total darkness; an exercise room with muscle-training equipment that looked out of place in the castle; a sitting room from which wafted more smells of fresh paint; another bathroom identical to the first but slightly grubbier; a tiny storage cupboard with a dumbwaiter; a laundry room rich with the scents of freshly-cleaned sheets and also paint; another bedroom with more candles than the first; and, finally, a reception room at the very end of the hall. All the doors were evenly-spaced, but the rooms varied wildly in size, and some had doors that must have led to other parts of the castle that there didn’t appear to be room for. It was enough to give Ren a headache, and he was glad to come to a stop in the reception room.

Dracula sat down, but the others didn’t, still possessing some sense of self-preservation. Outside, the sun was setting over the forest, because these windows looked out onto the right scenery.

“Well, that was very fun,” Dracula said. “But look at the time! I can’t possibly let you out into that snow storm. Won’t you stay the night?”

There was a tremor in the air. The tower still hadn’t given them any instructions. Without instructions, they had only common sense to rely on: Ryhad said, “We’ll have to decline, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, that’s not very polite.” Dracula smiled, completely at home in a high-backed armchair. “I really think you should stay the night. Aren’t you good children? You wouldn’t want to offend me, would you? I gave you such a nice house tour.”

Norhan had pushed his sister behind him and was carefully backing away, to the door. Ren was about to follow him when, outside, the sun set. It was as if a candle had been snuffed out, and then there was only the light of a few actual candles, and the lurid red of Dracula’s eyes.

“I really think you should stay,” he said, still at ease in the gloom. “I’ll ask once more. Won’t you stay the night?”

Backing away with the others, Ryhad shook his head: the movement of his plait was only just visible in the darkness. “We won’t,” he said, and there was a thunderous clock chime that shook the entire castle.

“Ding dong!” the tower sang. “Main branch triggered: ‘Dracula’s Chase Scene’. The game will last two hours, or until one party has become unable to play. Neither the players nor Dracula can step outside of the castle during the game.

“All players, please survive until morning!”

There was no time to run. No sooner had the tower finished its instructions than Dracula said, his voice low and velvety, “Stop.”

And they stopped. Their bodies stopped.

Ren couldn’t move: the bite from earlier was throbbing on his neck, and his body was paralysed. All attempts to run failed; all attempts to speak, to activate Divine Retribution, were in vain. He simply couldn’t move. He could still see and hear, but that only told him that the others weren’t moving either.

None of them were moving and it was almost certainly because of the bites from earlier. Cade took that information in calmly, and stopped pulling on her brother’s hand. She was on her own now, she realised. Guarded, she looked past her brother, past the others, to the eyes that glowed red in the dark. These narrowed.

“Ah,” Dracula said, getting to his feet. There was a smile in his voice. “You’re ‘it’ tonight, then. I don’t like that much. I don’t like children who don’t obey me. Why don’t we make this short? Come here, little girl.”

She pretended to be scared. She pretended to be too scared to move, and let him approach her. Caïn was growling and pulling on her socks, trying to get her to run, but she ignored him. With her hands held close to her chest, near the lapels of her jacket, she stood and shivered and watched Dracula come closer. He was smiling, and opened his cloak to reach for her: there didn’t seem to be anything interesting inside the cloak. It was probably just for show, so she didn’t have to worry about it. His hands, too, were normal, though the nails were a bit long. Caïn was yapping now, and she couldn’t blame him, but wished he’d stop: it was putting her off. She knew she wasn’t very good at looking scared: she closed her eyes so Dracula wouldn’t notice. She felt the cold of his hand on her shoulder, his icy breath as he leaned in to bite her. She waited.

At the very second his fangs touched her skin, she activated her ability.

His fangs pushed into thin air as she unravelled her neck like a skein of wool: she had just a moment before her head would fall to the ground, but a moment was all she needed. In the same instant she activated her ability, she pulled the gun from inside her jacket and shot him square in the face. The impact almost overbalanced her, and the noise might have deafened her, but she’d expected it, and had already pulled her body back together.

He was still howling in pain as she sprinted out of the door, Caïn at her heels. She wasn’t an idiot: one bullet wouldn’t stop him. Now she just had to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: plot inconsistencies....  
> mirenwe: there were plot inconsistencies.....  
> jiirva: all in favour of executing the author?  
> adam: hey wait a second does it even matter that much  
> jiirva: i don't want to hear a single word from your pathetic mouth when your story is so pock-marked with plot holes only your pitiful assertions of dominance are holding it together  
> adam:  
> adam:  
> adam: bit rich coming from the guy whose entire character arc was dropped after the first book  
> jiirva: thAT WAS NOT ME THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL AND I COULD EAT HIM ANY DAY  
> hosgard, holding jiirva back: adam you'd better leave  
> adam: you too: your motivations never even made sense  
> mirenwe, holding both gods back: ADAM YOU'D BETTER LEAVE
> 
>  
> 
> (actual author's note: please disregard any mentions in chapters 10 or 11 of (a) reality instances being used (b) the limit of non-tower-attacking-time being 3 months rather than 2)


	16. even a kid can be useful! (as a spare blood bank)

The initial plan was to run for the laundry room, two doors down from the reception room, because it had smelled of fresh paint. There were four such rooms, and Dracula had reacted badly to them all: Cade figured she’d have to either visit them all or use them as safe zones to escape him. With his howls of pain in her ears, she made a dash for the door; the cries turned to a roar of anger just as she opened it and threw herself inside, slamming it behind her.

There was no guarantee he would stay out. She ran through the vats of soapy water, a hair away from slipping on the slick tiled floor, to the back of the room where she was certain she’d seen a door earlier. Bisecting the room were rows of wide, white sheets hanging on lines that fluttered in the ventilation from the wheezing fan above them. Cade slipped behind them, Caïn at her heels, and had almost reached the last sheet when the door was ripped open: she heard metal screech as the hinges were wrenched open, and in an instant gave up on trying to reach the door at the back of the room. She pulled Little Red Riding Hood’s Cape out with one hand and picked Caïn up in the other, wrapped the cape around both of them, and began to count.

The effect would last for one minute. She heard and saw Dracula stalking through the laundry room, but couldn’t see why he was coming so slowly. He had to know she was in here, and if he suspected she wasn’t, he should be hurrying to the next room. One by one, he tore the sheets from their lines, and the shape of him through floating white took on more form, until finally he ripped away the last one and she saw him hunched over, holding his cape to his face — to mask the smell of fresh paint, she thought, because he didn’t seem to care about the oozing bullet wound in his forehead. It didn’t seem to have done anything more than temporarily stop him.

His eye: she should have aimed for his eye. That would have at least been useful. Now she’d used up one of the gun’s three bullets, and for what? A distraction? She could have used the Marvellous Macarons for that. She’d messed up already and she was going to have to be even better and even cleverer to save her brother, and she didn’t know if she could be.

Cade bit her lip, forcing herself to calm down. He’d hear if she breathed too loudly: he might even know if her heart was beating too fast. Purposefully, she stared at him, counting down seconds. Thirty-five left now. He was staring at the wall: he knew she was here. He knew, but couldn’t see. Caïn was very still in her arms, and she was grateful Ren had apparently trained him so well. Calmly, she stared Dracula down, and waited for him to turn away and hopefully leave.

With twenty-one seconds left, he did. He turned with a gnashing of fangs that should have sounded comical but chilled her instead. Ten seconds later, he was gone. She waited another second to be sure, and dropped Caïn as she darted for the door.

There really must have been something wrong with the castle, because beyond the door at the back of the room lay not the storage cupboard that should rightfully have been there, but a series of staircases all tangled together, heading in different directions. The space was massive, mostly in darkness, but she could see different-shaped doors attached to the walls at odd positions, like you were supposed to climb from the banisters into them. There was no time to worry about it: Cade began to run down the steps, and when she heard a bellow of “I’ll kill you!” from back in the laundry room, she jumped down onto a different staircase, running upwards this time. Caïn kept up with her, and even overtook her: caught between the need to escape Dracula and the unwillingness to lose Ren’s fox while he was under a spell, she ran up the stairs after him, and when he hopped onto a different staircase, she threw herself over the banister too, landing heavily. No time to catch her breath: Dracula was already on the stairs, and she couldn’t outrun him. That was a fierce, frenetic siren in her head: she could not outrun him, and must not let herself get into a position where she might have to. He wouldn’t fall for her ability a second time. If she abandoned her bag and unravelled her entire body, she might be able to use it to slip out of his reach, but losing the bag meant losing all the props her brother had found for her. Her options were narrowing down and he was catching up: when Caïn stopped in the middle of the stairs, in front of a door embedded in the wall, she pushed it open, climbed onto the banister, and jumped inside with him.

Immediately, fresh paint fumes overwhelmed her. They were in the sitting room from before, a mess of coloured wallpaper that clashed with furniture that clashed with the carpet. Heaving for breath, Cade looked down at the fox keeping pace with her. He’d brought her to this one on purpose. A lot better-trained than she’d imagined, then.

But that didn’t help her current situation. There were doors in the sitting room too, but when she hurled them open, they showed only brick walls; there was a window, but it looked out over the forest and she’d been told they weren’t allowed out there. She was about to search the room more thoroughly when she heard drumming at the door she’d come through — then, she abandoned all such efforts and ran for the main door, back to the corridor they’d originally walked up. Dracula burst through the staircase door just as she sprinted out of the main one: he growled and made a rapid turn with his cape flying around him, something scraping across the floorboards with a sound like nails wrenched through stone, and he was out into the corridor before she’d taken two steps.

There was no time to think or mourn the loss of props: Cade had already reached for the macarons, and threw them both at him. They exploded with a sound like shattering glass, pink powder shooting like shrapnel directly into Dracula’s face. He screamed, and Cade ran into the next room, not even bothering to close the door behind her. This was the exercise room, and there was no smell of paint: she jumped over a stand of dumbbells and flew for the next door, already equipping Fenrir’s Claws.

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll _kill_ you!” Dracula shrieked, crashing through the doorway. “You’re _mine!_ ”

As long as he was focused on her, he wouldn’t attack her brother. That was the point of all of this. That was what mattered, so she didn’t look back to see him descend upon her: she all but fell through the door, and, with no time even to feel relieved that this one led into another room of stairs, she threw Snow Queen’s Salt over the steps. By the time they froze over temporarily, she was already jumping onto the banister to slide down; Dracula slid too, but tripped, and fell behind. His yells of frustration echoed around the cavernous staircase room.

Cade’s legs were shaking when she came off the banister and followed Caïn (who had miraculously kept up with her) up a different flight of stairs. She didn’t think it was exhaustion. Exhaustion didn’t make her bones light and airy, her head a mass of cotton wool— but _no_ , she needed to think, she needed to work this out. There was no space to think because her ears were full of the pounding of her own heart, and her mind was at its limit just making immediate observations and plans, but that wasn’t good enough. She could recognise that the stairs and the doors embedded into the wall were the same shapes as the first staircase room she’d been in, she could deduce that there was likely only one staircase room and it allowed access into any of the other rooms: she could see all of that, but she couldn’t work out what she was supposed to do.

What did the tower want? How could she give it what it was asking for?

Caïn led her to another door: with a furious Dracula on her heels, she ran for it, and almost cried out when her treacherous legs failed her. Claws dug into the flesh of her ankle, and in the same moment that he tried to drag her down the stairs, she whirled around and slashed across his scalp with Fenrir’s Claws. It was enough, just barely. Scrambling back to her feet while he held his head and bayed for her blood, she fled into the next room — the office, newly-painted.

She had to think. She had to find time to think. Each new crisis pulled the rug from under the last almost as soon as she’d dealt with it, and there was no time.

Caïn was whining at her feet, trying to pull her into the next room, but she didn’t move. What was the point? She couldn’t outrun Dracula, and she couldn’t beat him. Those were truths carved into the stone of this castle. She had to keep running from him — and, crucially, keep him from going back to kill the others — for two hours and she didn’t think she could do it. Possibilities, like chores, were ticked off inside her head. She couldn’t last the two hours, and couldn’t beat him on her own. There was only one logical option, then.

Scooping Caïn up into her arms again, she slammed the Enchanting Music Box onto the office table and ran back to the wall next to the door she’d come from, covering herself with Little Red Riding Hood’s Cape again. Dracula staggered through the door just as she did: holding her tremulous breath, she saw that the claws had lived up to their reputation and gouged deep into his flesh; skull was visible through the blood-matted mess of his hair. Bile rose in her throat and she forced it down. The music box was already playing a syrupy waltz that apparently had a 10% chance of hypnotising its opponent. She didn’t care about that: in that moment, all she cared about was the slightly larger probability that it would mask her breathing.

Dracula stalked into the room, chest heaving, clearly repulsed by the smell. Cade counted the seconds by the beat of the waltz. At forty, he had moved on into the next room. She watched the door shut, and — without removing the cape — leaned down to whisper to Caïn, “Take me back to the others.”

She hoped he understood. It couldn’t be through the corridor: that was one flat stretch of track that she would never cover before Dracula caught her up. Lowering Caïn to the doorway that led back into the stairs, she took off the cape and followed him into the staircase space and hoped that she was right, that if they could find the right door, they’d be transported into the reception room, or at least the laundry room. She couldn’t rely on a fox: as she began to run down the stairs, she looked around, took stock of the doors on the walls, tried to decide which to go through, and her heart faltered when she felt hands close around her neck.

The world shuddered to a stop. She hadn’t heard him coming. How had she not heard him coming? How could she be so stupid as to let her own music box distract her from his footsteps? She tried to reach for her gun, but he pulled her arms back with his other hand, twisting them so she let out a silent gasp of pain.

The melody still sang in her ears, a steady one-two-three rhythm, but everything felt like it was grinding to a halt.

“That’s it,” he said, voice frayed with exertion. “No more. Aren’t you a good child? I caught you.”

She was scared. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she hated it, she couldn’t think, she was simply, honestly scared and she couldn’t move because even if she moved, where would she go? What would she do? She didn’t have many props left. She didn’t know how to widen the distance between them again. Her hands were trembling and she felt then that old enemy, the rising threat of tears. She’d been so close. It was happening all over again, and there wasn’t anyone to save her anymore.

She was a scared little girl. She could barely concentrate on what was in front of her: as Dracula’s hand’s tightened, ready to bite her or tear her head from her neck, she only just realised that Caïn was watching her. Then, he hopped off the stairs, to a staircase below.

Down.

Cade activated her ability. She needed plans: without a plan, she couldn’t have done it, but with what faith she had in this animal, she managed to unravel her entire body, leaving behind all props but the gun (safely in her unravelled jacket), and slid off the stairs before Dracula could catch her. She fell as string falls, in twists and loops, and it didn’t hurt when she landed; in a moment, she had reformed, and ran after Caïn. Her vision wasn’t quite restored, but she ran anyway, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

“Don’t think you’ve got away!” Dracula roared. He jumped down after her, but she sprinted through the darkness with everything she had, a stitch eating into her side, begging her body to go faster and faster to keep up with the snow-white fox ahead of her. Down and down they went, then over the sides of stairs, and down again into the pit, until Cade was dizzy with it all. Caïn was a will-o’-the-wisp luring her further, and she went because there was a monster on her tail. He led her to a door, and she slammed it open, leaping forwards into the reception room. Dracula was mere milliseconds behind. He clawed up the carpet behind her heels, but he couldn’t catch her up in time: there was no one to stop her when she ran to Ren, drew the gun, and shot him square in the heart.

Bare centimetres from Cade’s neck, Dracula stopped dead. She turned the gun on him next, but he wasn’t even looking at her: by the light coming from the corridor, she saw him stand beside her, dripping in his own blood with no apparent discomfort. He looked down at Ren’s body, then at her.

“I was going to eat that,” he said.

The room was mostly dark. Cade could see his face, because he was standing across from the corridor, and she could see Caïn’s white fluffy shape emerging from behind him, and that was about it. Her brother’s body was where it had been when she left it, and was apparently intact. That was fine, then. This could still work. Gratefully, she sank back into her plans.

As slowly as could be called natural, she began to back away, into the darkness, away from Ren’s body. Her body was weak: it didn’t take much to shake her head like she was scared. She was still holding the gun and now held it in front of her chest, pointing it at Dracula, who was watching her curiously. Curious, but not merciful. He turned on her, evidently ready to bring the game to an end. She shot him once, to show willing. Caïn wasn’t with her, now: it was just her and eyes that glowed red in the darkness.

“Come now,” he said, and she saw what light there was glint off his fangs. “You couldn’t really think one bullet would be enough, after all this time.”

She let her hands quiver, let the gun drop from her hands. She continued to back away, until she hit a bookcase and had to stop. She acted scared, because that drew all his attention to her, and kept him from questioning why she would have shot her own teammate.

He should have been questioning it anyway, she thought. Either he knew something she didn’t or he was exceptionally stupid. With all her heart, she hoped it was the latter. She didn’t have many options left.

“Come here.” Dracula was bloodied, a mess, and entirely shrouded in darkness. “Give up.”

Cade shook her head desperately. It seemed he was about to say something more then, but whatever words he’d had on his tongue died in a gargled gasp accompanied by the clatter of metal moving against metal, and a distinct sound that could only be described as punctured flesh.

Ren retracted the chain, wrinkling his nose when it came back covered in blood.

‘ _Really, what were you expecting? Be careful: he_ _’s terribly fast when he wants to be, and while damage stops him for a while, he doesn’t suffer long-term consequences, for the most part. I think you’ll have to decapitate him, or stake the heart. Something like that. Let’s move somewhere lighter._ ’

Caïn was at his feet, moving back with him towards the corridor’s red-tinted light. He couldn’t quite see what was going on in the darkened room, but felt relief when Dracula’s crimson eyes turned on him. Anything turning on him meant turning away from Cade, and that was all to the good. As Caïn had suggested, he stepped back into the corridor fully, and no sooner had he passed Norhan’s motionless body than Dracula was upon him, a vision of horror under the light. Ren had no idea what Cade had done to him, but it looked like it had involved blades to the scalp and several shots to the face: it was almost nauseating to look at the weeping, wrinkling flesh, the exposed bone and the inhumanly small amount of blood, and he hesitated. In that moment of hesitation, Dracula hissed and lunged for him.

Caïn hadn’t lied: he was stupidly fast, and Ren couldn’t keep up. He had Divine Retribution out as sword and shield, desperately trying to block the vampire’s grasping hands and bared fangs. They weren’t just bared, either: in the scrum of chain and body, Dracula was releasing venom from his fangs. It glittered in the light, and Ren wouldn’t have paid it any attention if a few drops hadn’t landed on his right hand, which immediately began to burn.

He yelped, shaking his hand as if to get the venom off, but that only made it spread. Then Dracula was grappling at the chains that kept him back: he fought to get at Ren, and Ren couldn’t afford to worry about the foreign burn creeping over his skin. It was the unnatural fear of something unknown happening to one’s own body, and he hated it: impulsive, he wrapped his chains around Dracula’s neck and pushed him away, and — upon seeing that that was working — tightened them. It sickened him. He could see the vampire’s struggling, could hear him choking for breath, could see his eyes bulge and even feel the fluttering, frantic pulse in his throat.

It was horrible. It was his first kill. It would have been easier if it had been quick, but most things were like that. This was slow and squirming and so completely his own doing that he couldn’t tear his eyes away, not until the very end.

His hand was burning; he didn’t think of it.

‘ _I_ _’d remove the head, if I were you. You never know with the undead._ ’

He did. He really hoped Cade wasn’t watching.

“Ding dong! Dracula has forfeited the game. At 14:18 on January 4th, 2018, the players Ren Delacroix, Ryhad Dalisirene, Norhan Eppalai and Cade Eppalai have successfully cleared the reality instance ‘Dracula’s Chase Scene’ and won the reward ‘Fresh and Feisty Fangs’.”

 

 

When asked what had happened during the instance, Cade said very little (according to Norhan, since they were now out of the instance and had lost the translation function); when asked what she’d been planning on doing if Ren hadn’t been conscious and hadn’t been able to activate his ability in time, she shrugged and said quite truthfully that they all would have died. It was a fair point, and Ren didn’t dispute it.

‘ _That was way too close_ ,’ he remarked as they walked the one minute or so necessary to get back to the car. The forest had sprung back to normal, and the snow had disappeared. He was walking up front with Ryhad, because the siblings were talking — apparently Cade had been apologising for losing her bag of props and needed to be reassured that it didn’t matter and she’d done wonderfully.

‘ _It wasn_ _’t that close,_ ’ Caïn said in a reasonable tone of voice. ‘ _If she hadn_ _’t been able to, I’d have killed you. It would have been a pain to do it and not arouse suspicions, but still doable. And anyway, the entire point was that Dracula could not have bitten the whole party. That wouldn’t be very fair. You were given the exact amount of lenience necessary to have a fighting chance, and it just so happened that that fighting chance took into account your ability’s habit of restoring you as good as new after you’ve died._ ’

Weaving his way through the throng of cars outside the forest, Ren looked back down at Caïn. ‘ _If you knew that was the best way out, why didn_ _’t you lead her to it right away, then?_ ’

‘ _…I did not immediately realise that that was the best way forwards, I’ll admit._ ’

If Ren had wanted to tease Caïn about this (and he did), he didn’t have the time: as he weaved his way out from the cars, he heard Ryhad call his name, and looked up.

The winter sky was overcast, an uninspiring grey. It was too cold, but in a way Ren didn’t feel down to his bones, so he didn’t mind. It helped the burn of his hand, at least. That was only just fading away and he still didn’t know what to do about it. Holding it with his other hand while also trying not to touch the fingers too much, he said, “What’s up?”

Ryhad was looking at him in a solemn sort of way, different from how he usually looked only in a softening of the lines of the eyebrows. “Are you alright?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Apart from the hand.”

“I meant, are you alright with killing him?”

The question was like a cold wind in his face, and he stiffened instinctively to shield himself from it. But it did have to be answered: laughing, he said, “Yeah, of course I’m fine. Had to be done, right? There was really no other way, and anyway, everyone kills these days.”

“You don’t.”

“I guess I do now.”

It wasn’t that he wished he hadn’t: it was that he wished he’d had another choice — anger at the system he was in rather than the situation he had been in. Out of some kind of respect, he hadn’t been able to look away from Dracula as he died, and now the image was seared onto the backs of his eyelids. It didn’t feel good, but it had been necessary; he didn’t want to be the sort of person who killed, but had to be, these days. The world kept moving, and all you could do was run to keep up.

He followed Ryhad to the car, and, before the door had been opened, asked, “Hey, do you think you could kill me?”

Ryhad gave him a withering look. “You still have both arms, so that’s a hard no.”

“What am I supposed to do about this, though?” Ren demanded, holding up his hand. The venom had eaten into his flesh and melted it: it had re-solidified now, but most of his fingers were stuck together with rivulets of skin that looked like cooled lava. He didn’t even want to look at the thing, it was too repulsive to think about it being his own body, but it was as good an excuse as any. He felt — in some way, the mere whisper of a feeling — that he ought to die too, to even things out.

This opinion was clearly not shared by all. Ryhad took his hand, looked it over, and said, “We can cut them open and it’ll heal fine. I’m not killing you for this.”

“I’ll get Norhan to do it, then.”

“I’m not doing it either,” Norhan informed him cheerfully. He’d caught them up, carrying his sister in his arms. “Tell you what, you can use the sand to heal quicker.”

“It’s a _mess_ , though!” He hated looking at it. He hated the idea that his hand was like this, just as he hated the impatient thrumming in his chest that told him he needed to make some sort of amends for killing a person, but no one was very sympathetic.

“I’ll do it now, if that’ll make you feel better,” Ryhad said calmly, getting a knitting needle out. “I’d advise you look away and talk to distract yourself, but we’d better do it before moving on much further.”

“Killing me won’t hurt as much!”

“Grow up: you can’t rely on your ability like this all the time.”

All further argument was stopped dead when the tower spoke.

“Ding dong!” it said happily. “At 14:25 on January 4th, 2018, China District 487 stowaways Vike Larle and Acqen Utei, and the reserve player Einierre Luta have successfully cleared the black tower’s third floor (hard mode).”

Ren stared at the sky, eyes widening as the message repeated twice more. Each repetition was another reassurance telling him that he hadn’t misheard, that both of their names (and some other guy’s) really had been announced. They were both okay. Happiness bubbled up inside him, erasing whatever had been going on a few seconds prior: he almost laughed.

“Do you know the third one?” Ryhad asked, leaning on the car. “Einierre is her girlfriend, I think you said?”

“I did!” Beaming, he nodded until his head hurt. “They’re both alive! I have no idea who that Acqen guy is, but they’re both alive!”

Norhan stepped forwards to be part of the celebration. “Wait, what? You know them?”

There wasn’t really any point to hiding it any longer. Still bursting with relief, Ren said, “Vike’s my sister! Her name hadn’t been called out for a while so I was getting worried, and I didn’t know if Einierre was still around, but they both are!”

It took Norhan a moment to process that information. He put his own sister down (she crouched down to engage in a staring contest with Caïn) and ran his hand through his hair, humming as if in thought. “So that’s why you’re so confident about this. I’ll be honest, I’ve been worrying we’d end up getting there just to find out she got lost when everyone else disappeared. But no, your sister is the most powerful player in the world.”

“She’s not the _most_ powerful…”

“She unlocked hard mode, whatever the fuck that is.”

“Okay, yeah, she’s kind of amazing,” Ren said, giving into the warm pride flooding his chest.

It was decided, upon discussion (with Caïn’s input) that hard mode announcements were probably not broadcast to everyone, just as zone-internal announcements were probably not broadcast to everyone. They had no way of proving this, but it seemed logical. Either way, the most important thing was that they had heard the announcement, either because it was in fact a global one, or because they’d already cleared the third floor. That meant there were now two chances per floor: clear it first globally, or unlock hard mode. There was the unsaid decision that they had to get one or the other for the fourth floor.

Ren’s hand was sorted out before they got back in the car. He hated every second of it, but the good news buoyed him up and Norhan kept him distracted, and he didn’t even have to look at his hand again before sand had been applied to it, and by then it was at least bearable. He spread his fingers once or twice, to test, and said, “I want new clothes.”

“We just restocked,” Ryhad said, getting into the driver’s seat.

“These are all bloody now. I want more when we get to Kiev.”

Ryhad rolled his eyes. “You should have warned me you were this high-maintenance before we teamed up.”

“Well, you’re stuck with me now!” Huffing just a little, he pulled Caïn onto his lap and pulled out the new prop from his pocket. They were like two little shark teeth, and tapping them revealed the usual stats.

 

[Prop: Fresh and Feisty Fangs]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 3]

[Attack: Good.]

[Function: Long-range weapon. Upon impact, they have a tendency to burrow into surfaces and splinter, releasing a mild sedative. The sedative has a 10% likelihood of completely incapacitating.]

[Restrictions: None.]

[Remarks: Don’t you feel that this takes all the romance out of it?]

 

He was so engrossed in trying to work out what romance the remark thought it was talking about that he didn’t see Ryhad’s expression soften to say, “Yeah, I’m stuck with you.”

“Me too, right?”

Ryhad turned judgemental eyes on Norhan’s blatant attempt at pushing his luck, and — starting the car — said, “Because you come with your sister and she just saved our lives, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> velial: hi~~!✧✧ welcome ALL my lovely viewers to this sexy little segment i like to call 'which character would taste best'! can you guess what it's about~~? ❤  
> hosgard, jiirva (with chianti) and mirenwe:  
> hosgard, jiirva (with slightly less chianti) and mirenwe:  
> hosgard, sighing: is it about which character you most want to eat  
> velial: *:･ﾟ✧it is!!❤✧ﾟ･:*  
> mirenwe: jiirva please can y-  
> jiirva: let the man finish  
> mirenwe:  
> mirenwe:  
> mirenwe: :(  
> velial: so! can you guess which it is~~❤?  
> jiirva: wolf boy  
> mirenwe, hopefully: ....the mermaid princess? because she's part fish?  
> hosgard: the only right answer is my husband but i'll kill you if it's him and anyway based on your apparent thing for nervous but well-meaning protagonists i'm guessing it's ren  
> velial: c✧o✧r✧r✧e✧c✧t✧!  
> jiirva, smashing the glass of chianti on the floor: okay this cameo is over you need to leave


	17. don't you hate it when your game lags and you get swarmed by dumb monsters that don't even have any good loot and you can't get to the main quest and then some fucken npcs come to jump you? anyway, unrelated but here's the chapter

Kiev was, in a word, a challenge. They entered the city, abandoned the car, collected their bags, walked ten metres, and were promptly engulfed in a reality instance.

It wasn’t a very difficult one. It took half an hour and resulted in nothing more than a nasty bruise on Norhan’s back, though the same couldn’t be said for the bridge troll they’d taken the liberty of slapping around a little. The problem was that after they came out of the instance (with a reward prop as useless as the instance had been easy), they’d only walked for another five minutes before they were caught in another reality instance. This, again, was easy enough, inhabited by a troll (this time in a town reminiscent of Happy Seaside Town but grimier) quickly-finished, and they earned a useless prop for it.

The pattern persisted.

It became clear within the first hour, after four reality instances, that they wouldn’t be able to make it to the tower (looming tantalisingly in the distance) before the end of the day. It wasn’t as if they’d have made it anyway — game time was over until the next morning — but the idea had been to settle relatively close to the tower and recover for a few days before attacking the fourth floor. Caïn had hated the idea, in his way: with more feeling than he put into many things, he had told Ren that if they attacked the fourth floor as they were currently, it wouldn’t go well for them. In the Dracula reality instance, they had been lucky. Luck was fickle and ought not to be relied upon. They had to prepare, and there was no rush since he couldn’t see that they had many rivals, globally-speaking, especially not if they were aiming for hard mode, he said. It was important to strengthen their foundations with smaller instances first, he said.

‘ _I hope you_ _’re happy now,_ ’ Ren said once they were safely inside an abandoned house. There was no guarantee that there wasn’t a reality instance inside the house too, but Norhan had already made the ‘the reality instance is coming from inside the house’ joke and they’d all decided not to worry about it. For now, it was better to find somewhere to lay low until the light came back and they could continue inching their way towards the tower.

Caïn rolled over on Ren’s stomach to reveal his own; while Ren stroked it, he said in a dignified manner, ‘ _I have to admit I had more challenging instances in mind when I advocated for them._ ’

‘ _Do you know what_ _’s going on?_ ’

‘ _Well, the city_ _’s clearly infected. Maybe something happened with this black tower. Things do happen, you know. Even with systems as powerful as the black towers, things slip through the cracks every so often. I expect this is one of those times, but it hasn’t exactly worked out in our favour. A little to the left, please._ ’

Ren obliged. He was lying on a mess of pillows in the dining room because he refused to use any of the bedrooms. There was no artificial light, and not enough natural light to truly see by. He was supposed to be on guard: Norhan was upstairs making sure his sister got some sleep even if she repeatedly said she was fine; Ryhad was also upstairs because Ren had insisted he try and sleep after all that driving. The house was quiet, and empty. If Ren had been more of a ruminating type, he thought melancholy might have touched him, but it didn’t. He felt instead like he had a layer of polish over him — a veneer that reflected the melancholy away as it reflected the moonlight. Clocks ticked in the unfamiliar house, but time didn’t matter so much anymore. They lost enough time to the games as it was. There was no rhyme or reason there: regardless of the amount of time the games seemed to take them, the tower would portion off a section of real-world time and rip it from them, like it was slowly ripping away their humanity.

‘ _Didn_ _’t you just say you were impervious to melancholy or something? Ren, it’s quite late: let’s not do this._ ’

‘ _I didn_ _’t ask you to listen in. Just lie there and be stroked._ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t think you should be pessimistic. You’re only upsetting yourself. The changes to your body have been nothing but advantageous to you. The time issue is a bit unfortunate, but I wouldn’t have called it disastrous. As far as I know, everyone is affected the same._ ’ He rolled over again, climbing up Ren’s chest to look into his face, blocking out the light. There was only black now: Caïn’s eyes never seemed to shine. ‘ _Don_ _’t worry. What is essential remains the same. We will succeed and we will find your sister. Alright?_ ’

‘ _…alright._ ’

He was rewarded with a quick nuzzle to the cheek. It was a disarmingly affectionate gesture, from Caïn. Ren didn’t get so far as to wonder why he might have done it: before he could, Caïn was returning to his stomach and saying, ‘ _Tell me more about your sister._ ’

Ren loved his sister. He had more than enough to talk about until Ryhad came down three hours later, saying he’d take over the watch.

They made very little progress the next day. It was the same story in different lighting: about once every half hour, they would run into a reality instance. These were never difficult, never rewarding, and always involved trolls. During the time they were allowed to walk through Kiev, they did see some people, but never many, and never for long. Four people (and one fox) made an intimidating group these days, especially given Ryhad’s default expression and the shirts Norhan chose to wear — perhaps it was out of wariness that they were avoided, or perhaps nobody had the time to attack newcomers for props. It was easy to see how you might not want to fight in a city where one wrong step would land you in an unskippable reality instance.

“It’s so _boring_ ,” Ren said as he collapsed onto a sofa at the end of the day. They’d chosen another house after raiding a supermarket for what little food it had had left.

“It feels like a level the developers didn’t plan out,” Norhan agreed, offering his sister some chocolate. She seemed to pause in the throes of deep temptation, waver, then tell him he could have it, and it took another minute of persuasion to convince her it was for her.

“Do you think the tower made a mistake?” Ren asked in an open question.

Ryhad lifted his eyebrows. “Do we know that the tower makes mistakes?”

“We don’t know it doesn’t.”

“It might be that these are the small fry and they’ll get progressively more difficult.”

“I don’t think they’ve gotten difficult so far, though.”

“No, I don’t either. In which case,” he said, transferring water into fuller water bottles so they had fewer to carry around, “I think it would be best to power through and make it to the tower.”

It took them two more days. This was mostly due to one reality instance on the 7th taking four hours of real-world time (incidentally it also might have earned the prize for the most boring tower game in existence, since it had mostly consisted of waiting for clouds to move until they were in range of a magical crossbow that particular game’s troll had given them) — because of this, they reached the black tower past 6pm, and had to wait. Two main things were learnt during these days: first, that the reality instances disappeared once cleared; second, that either very few people lived in Kiev anymore, or the inhabitants lived on the outskirts of the city, because they saw even fewer people the closer they got. The reality instances swarmed around the black tower like worker bees around their queen: nobody could be blamed for wanting to avoid them. They were tedious. They were a disgrace to gaming. They were the reason that the party only reached the black tower on the 8th.

It was bright and early — an unusually light morning, for winter, and the sun poured down icily through the cloud cover. Cade had been given a new small backpack loaded with the most useful of the useless props they’d picked up over the past few days, and the others, having found no weapons to match their old favourites, had made no changes at all. Caïn politely told Ren that he really thought they would benefit from finding a proper instance and having a go at that, that tower floors were not a game despite the fact that they were games, and he went ignored.

‘ _What else are we supposed to do?_ ’ Ren asked nonchalantly as they walked up to the tower.

‘ _Practise. I have been telling you this for days._ ’

‘ _Eh, it_ _’ll be fine._ ’

‘ _In the end it_ _’s entirely your choice but I have invested a great amount of time and effort into you and I’d really rather it wasn’t wasted. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt, either. Emotionally, I mean. I really only—_ _…stop._ ’

Instinctively, Ren did. As a rule, Caïn did not order him to do anything that wasn’t imperative. He looked around: they were in an enormous open space, grand buildings lining it like window dressing to the jewel that was a single column in the very middle of the stone-paved area. Around its base was a star engraved in something that might have been gold but was now faded; crowning it was a statue of some sort that was definitely gold, and would have glowed if it weren’t entirely submerged in the black tower’s shadow. Ren couldn’t see anybody, but he saw that Ryhad had also stopped, and that, as if he’d picked up on the apprehension, Norhan had too. There was something, then. Something hidden? Ren didn’t like jump scares: he dearly hoped not. He was just trying to brace himself for one when Ryhad stuck a hand out in front of him; looking past that hand, past Ryhad’s back, he saw four figures on the other side of the plaza.

They were close in that the black tower did not separate the two groups, but they were too far to make out any real features. They were coming closer, though: as they did — as Ryhad and Norhan, having better senses of self-preservation, stiffened and readied themselves — Ren could differentiate between them. It seemed there were two men and two women — or no, perhaps not, because two of them couldn’t have been more than teenagers, and he realised he could only see them as a boy and a girl. Of the two who looked older, one was a woman in boots so heavy that the sound of them against the stone could be heard even from where he was; the other was a tall man, distinctive for the fact that he was black where the other three seemed white. They didn’t appear to be carrying any obvious weapons, but that really didn’t mean anything anymore.

“Do you think they’re here to attack the tower too, maybe?” he asked aloud. “Shouldn’t we just…go do that?”

‘ _They_ _’re powerful,_ ’ Caïn warned. The others seemed to have picked up on this too, somehow.

“They’re heading straight for us,” Ryhad said. “Get Divine Retribution out.”

“That is still such a pretentious name,” Norhan commented while Ren did as he was told. Then, “Which will you take?”

“Tallest one, to start. If it turns out the others have powerful props or abilities, I’ll switch. Stay close to Cade unless it seems we need backup, in which case Cade should probably run for the time being.”

“I’ll transform if any of them come near me.”

“Alright.”

Ren looked at them both, not quite understanding how the situation had devolved into this. “Wait,” he said, and they didn’t look at him, since they were both fixated on the four strangers. “We’re not going to fight them, are we? Like, right away?”

“Are you going to wait for them to do it first? Approaching us is an act of aggression,” Ryhad said, walking forwards. “It’s not one I’ll tolerate. Come on.” Then, as if he’d sensed that that was a bit harsh, he turned just enough to glance at Ren and say, “Don’t worry: the aim is to scare them off, not kill them.”

Ren supposed that was better than nothing.

The two of them walked forwards; when they were close enough to see the strangers clearly, they began to run. A variety of emotions flashed across the strangers’ faces, ranging anywhere from shock to anger, but they all ended in determination.

Ren didn’t often fight for fun: he didn’t know how to go about it, and didn’t know how to choose an opponent. The girl and the young woman (though now he was closer, he realised she couldn’t have been much older than him) were closest, so he went to them, and they came to him. The woman’s boots crashed onto the ground, heavier now — he realised too late that they weren’t natural, because by the time Caïn’s urgent warning reached him, she had already used the impact to rip open a rift in the stone. It raced towards him and he leapt out of the way, shooting a chain at the ground to push him back; narrowly, he avoided the blade of air that battered that same chain. It didn’t slice it in half, which would have been incredibly alarming, but had it hit him, he felt sure he wouldn’t have been able to get up for a minute or two. But there was no time to consider that fact. Already the girl was upon him, closer and closer until he could see every freckle and birthmark on her face; in an instant he had the chains in an X in front of him, pushing her back, but in that same instant she cut her forearm on a blade angled upwards on her hip as if for that purpose, and swung her arm to spatter him with the blood.

‘ _What the_ fuck _?_ ’ he thought, because he hadn’t the breath to say it aloud while he was simultaneously pushing her back and trying to wrap a second chain around the young woman who wasn’t letting it happen.

‘ _I doubt that was just to disgust you: watch out for what happens next._ ’

It was already happening. He was distracted — the young woman had tried to pull on the chain to reel him in — but he could feel the far-too familiar burn of acid on his skin. He couldn’t look down to check what was going on: he had to try and track the burn while dashing to the side, out of range of a small crossbow prop the girl had brought out. She aimed, and fired: using the destructive impact of chains on stone, Ren pushed himself into the air again and avoided it, but saw that she seemed to have been aiming for his legs. That was something: either she was a terrible shot, or she wasn’t aiming to kill. The problem came when he landed, shuddering with the effort it took to stay upright. The two of them seemed to have worked out that his chains didn’t work well in extremely close combat, and had rounded on him. Abandoning the crossbow, the girl used her blood again with a grimace, and the burning sensation already patched across Ren’s arms doubled. It wasn’t the same as with the venom: where that had melted his skin, this only burnt, but it still hurt.

Both of them had close-range weapons and they used them — it was all he could do to block each blow with chains. His heightened instincts were working at full capacity. He could barely think: it took too much concentration to keep up with them. Caïn tried to help, offering spatterings of advice, but even if this would have been a good opportunity to use this or that prop, he didn’t have the time to grab any. It was assault after assault, and they were beginning to get through his chains and connect with his skin: the white-hot line of a butterfly knife’s cut joined the burning, and another, and another, but the burning didn’t stop, and it was worse than the cuts.

He lost ground. Before he knew it, he was under the shadow of the black tower.

‘ _Do you think I could attack the tower to get out of this?_ ’

‘ _You could but I would find it hard to forgive you. If you— watch out!_ ’

The warning came too late: the young woman unleashed another blade of air, and it was far too close to dodge this time. His body was thrown back like a discarded doll, and he landed badly, skinning his elbow on the stones. Before he had even opened his eyes, he heard a deep growl from across the plaza: he looked up to see Norhan, transformed, running to join him. It was galling that he needed help while Ryhad was holding his own perfectly well against two opponents, but upon further reflection Ren realised he didn’t really want to be good at fighting anyway. He got up, legs shaking, desperately trying not to look at the burns on his skin because he knew they would only repulse him.

The women had been understandably taken aback to see a giant wolf hurtling towards them, but seemed to have gathered themselves together again. It wasn’t a well-matched fight: close-range weapons were ineffective if you didn’t have the time to use them before you were shoved away by force you hadn’t a hope of withstanding. Norhan didn’t bite, but with strength far beyond human, he made sure they couldn’t come close to him, using his claws if they became necessary.

‘ _Intercept the boy_.’

Ren didn’t immediately understand. He’d been about to back up Norhan, and stopped in his tracks. For some minutes, his vision had been focused on what was right in front of him, what was about to attack him, and he hadn’t looked around: it was almost disorienting to now take in the entire scene, and see that their number had increased by one.

The boy Ryhad had been fighting had doubled. That was the only explanation: there were now two of him. One stood near his companion, blocking any attacks Ryhad threw at him with competence but no energy, and the other was running towards Ren’s group.

‘ _The running one is the real one. He_ _’s realised the other two will need support if you join in: stop him before he gets there._ ’

Ren had already begun to run.

The milky sun shone down from between clouds; everywhere there were clashes and dull, heavy sounds; his heart pounded in his chest and he pushed himself to run faster, faster, to stop the boy before he could do anything. If he stopped him, maybe the fight too could stop. They could leave each other alone, then. So Ren ran, and, as he had had total confidence he would, cut in front of the boy with metres to spare.

The boy had seen him coming and so was not surprised. There was a vulnerable kind of fear on his face, as freckled as the girl’s was, but he bit his lip and drew out a long knife. Ren’s stomach plummeted: he really didn’t want that thing near him. Trying to angle himself properly, he shot the chains out to bind the boy’s arms by his sides, and was about to pull him to a manageable distance away when there was a shout.

It was the older man. Ren had no idea what he’d said, but the boy froze — then, Ren did too. He knew he should have taken the opportunity to act, to take the upper hand, to do anything, but he wasn’t a natural at this. Time was suspended, and he was caught with it: fascination pulsed through the adrenaline as he watched the man fail to get past Ryhad yet again, and then, with an expression of resignation, leap into the air.

He did not fall down. Graceful as a dance, he ran through the air like the currents were platforms that could carry his weight; he gained height, and the sun shone behind him, illuminating a bronze halo behind his dreadlocks. This was nothing like the girl Ren had once fought, who could suspend herself in air. This was nimble, natural; a naked expression of ease in a sky that welcomed him.

He landed to silence. Everyone watched as he straightened his clothes, looked up, and met Ren’s eyes. Calmly, he held out a hand. It was a universal gesture: not outstretched enough to indicate a handshake, just a simple demand — _give him back_.

Ren didn’t think, or ask anyone else’s opinion, or even look for help. He nodded and retracted Divine Retribution, because it was what he wanted to do. Maybe it would have been more prudent to keep a hostage, but he wasn’t that sort of person. He took a step back and watched as the teenage boy went to the older man’s side and had his hair ruffled. So followed another dance, but one of mutual wariness: the two of them backed away, to the edge of the black stain the tower threw over the plaza, and the man called the other two to him. Ren and the others similarly regrouped, never quite taking their eyes off the strangers.

Once Ren was back with the others, he felt able to breathe. No one seemed terribly injured, and though he still didn’t want to look down at his burns, they’d at least stopped hurting so keenly. Norhan hadn’t yet transformed back, and his sister was on his back, apparently used to sitting there. Ryhad’s eyes were on the group of strangers and the look on his face was eerily reminiscent of the way he had watched the fireflies burn, back on the second floor. And, as he had back then, Ren looked up at him; just as he was about to say something, Ryhad turned on his heel and said, “We’re going.”

They did: with the other four’s eyes on them, they left the plaza, back to the relative safety of deserted streets.

Looking back over his shoulder, Ren asked, “Was it okay to just leave like that?”

“Did you want me to kill them?”

He shot a look at Ryhad and hopefully got across just how little he appreciated that comment. “Did you _want_ to kill them?”

There was a pause. Two pairs of footsteps and two pairs of paw-steps went down the street at a reasonably hurried pace, back to the house they had stayed in the previous night. Then, Ryhad admitted, “No.”

“Then stop saying stuff like that.”

It was agreed they would try to attack the tower again tomorrow. Neither of them offered any hypotheses as to what the strangers had wanted, and Norhan wasn’t in the right body to speak, anyway. All they knew was that those had been relatively high-level players, and that was a rarity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luta: lmaoooo is that freckled boy the one with a big baby crush on your mirenwe  
> mirenwe: [small voice] oh no  
> hosgard: he used to moon over mirenwe so much and in this one he doesn't even know him...a loss for the gays  
> luta: 3:0 for the lesbians so far  
> jiirva: i find him weak-willed  
> luta: oh come on he only just showed up  
> hosgard: shh no that's a compliment from them  
> jiirva: pleasingly biddable  
> hosgard: there we go


	18. i want to be friends.....!!! but why can't you understand my heart?

Ren was woken up early on the morning of the 9th. He’d slept three hours and forced himself to sleep another one, just for something to do, because they couldn’t very well leave for the tower before the tower games were even open. It was dark still. It must have been about 4am, he thought, and he didn’t feel at all tired. Blankly, he looked out of the window for a few minutes — then, he picked Caïn up and went downstairs, to see who else was awake.

Norhan was easily found: he was in the kitchen, rummaging around in cupboards with a torch they’d found the other day. Reaffirming his grip on Caïn’s body, Ren stood in the doorway and watched until his presence was noticed: Norhan’s ears (now wolfish again: he’d spent too long in his other form) twitched, and he looked up.

“Are you stealing?”

“Seeing if they’ve got anything non-perishable,” Norhan explained shamelessly, holding up several bars of cooking chocolate and a jar of jam. “Got to provide for my family.”

Ren grinned. “With pure sugar?”

“Sweet tooths run in the blood,” was the knowledgeable explanation, but apparently Ren’s intrusion had curbed the scavenging spirit, and Norhan left it there. They went back into the small living space on the first floor: there, sitting on the floor under the moonlight, Cade was arranging her props into little lines. She did this occasionally: apparently it was a way for her to memorise them. She looked up when they came in, and her eyes widened in almost-excitement when she saw the chocolate. It still took a minute or so of persuasion for her to take a bar and begin to eat it.

“Always a challenge, that,” Norhan said ruefully, sitting down heavily on the sofa. “She hasn’t liked to take anything from anyone since…well, since this all started.”

Ren sat next to him, and — arranging Caïn in his lap so he could go back to sleep comfortably — asked, “Do you think it’s trauma?”

“Strong yes to that, but what can you do?” He was smiling; he always smiled. “No therapists around anymore, and Dad always understood her better than I did. I’m just doing my best with her and hopefully that’ll be enough.”

With another person, Ren might have tried to comfort them in some way like his mother had always done for him, but Norhan didn’t seem the type who’d take it. Not that he’d reject it, but that it would run off his smile like water from a duck’s feathers. The moonlight was coming from behind them: a slither of Norhan’s ponytail and cheek were lit up coldly, and nothing else, but his eyes shone when he realised he was being watched and looked back questioningly in turn.

For something to say, Ren asked, “Where did Ryhad get to?”

“Oh, he went off in a huff because I told him we should probably stop attacking people.”

“I’m sorry, you did what?”

“Well, it didn’t work out well, did it?” Norhan spread his hands to underline his point. “I was worried at the time, so I went along with it, but now I think about it, at least one of them had to speak some English, right? So we could have communicated. But we didn’t, and you got hurt, and it was a mess, honestly. So I told him that next time, we should avoid fights rather than start them. And he doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong, so he stormed off, but I’m pretty sure he’ll come round.”

Ren had a momentary panic that that was pure optimism and the group would forever have a schism in it, but the panic passed quickly enough. “Where did he go? He didn’t leave the house, did he?”

“He just went upstairs. Did you not hear him?”

“No, but I just woke up.”

“Guess that might explain it. He wasn’t that angry, don’t worry, he’s just a bit feisty.”

“I think I’d be a lot happier if you never use that word to describe anyone ever again.”

Norhan laughed and bent down to organise his sister’s hair a little. “How did you two meet, anyway? I don’t think you mentioned having known him back before all this happened.”

“Didn’t I tell you? We were playing against each other in an instance where he ended up killing me — but like, I asked for it — and we got a prop that needed us to use it together, and I needed someone to drive me to China, so it seemed obvious.”

“Companionship of convenience, then?”

“I mean, I guess. I did also want a friend.”

“Do you think you found one? Just because,” he said, clarifying himself in the face of Ren’s bewilderment, “he’s pretty harsh with you sometimes. I don’t mind: I’m making it a personal goal to get him to smile at me one day, so I’m fine with it, but you’re a good kid. You don’t deserve that. So I was just wondering.”

It was said kindly, which was the oddest part of it all. “I don’t see it like that,” Ren said truthfully. “I like him. He’s…like, calming, I guess? I mean, he has anger issues too, but still.”

He didn’t really know how to express what he meant. There was no easy way to catch all those feelings and process them into words, but he truly felt no dissatisfaction.

“That’s alright, then,” Norhan said, smiling warmly. “Just making sure. I wouldn’t want to break the group up anyway: I love my sister more than anything, but she’s not great at talking.”

After the effort he’d put into fixing it, he messed up Cade’s hair, and when she looked at him questioningly, explained in Greek what he’d just said about her. She seemed to take offence (just a little) and said something back that made him laugh, his tail batting from side to side. Ren watched it, wondering how rude it’d be to ask to touch it.

“How long are your…you know, your ears and tail, going to stick around for?”

“Hm?” he looked up. “A day or so, usually. Maybe two days, this time? I was in that form for a bit longer than I should have been.” He laughed. “As long as it’s under four hours, it’s fine: that’s the longest I’ve gone, and it was around the four hour mark that I realised I was finding it hard to remember how to turn back.”

“Isn’t that really dangerous?”

“Maybe!” He laughed again. “But I know my limits. And I don’t mind staying long enough to pick up these things.” He flicked his tail demonstratively. “They kind of give my ability away, but they’re fun. Want to feel?”

The invitation was more than welcome. His fur wasn’t as soft as Caïn’s, but it was still pleasant to the touch, and Norhan seemed to enjoy having his ears stroked. It wasn’t behaviour typical of a man in his late twenties, and Ren said so.

“What, aren’t I allowed to have fun? It feels good.”

“What did you use to do, anyway? Like as a job,” Ren asked, scratching the base of Norhan’s ear because he seemed to like that. “You’ve mentioned your dad being rich but not what you did.”

“Oh, my job was to have fun with my dad’s money.”

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I was a rockstar.”

“You weren’t.”

“What, don’t I look like one?”

“You look like a washed-up one, maybe.”

“ _Rude_ ,” Norhan said, laughing. “I’m not even thirty.”

“Ancient,” Ren insisted. “I can’t even imagine being that old.”

“That’s because you’re not a good kid after all, you’re a brat.”

Ren might have retorted something back, but his attention was diverted by Caïn looking up suddenly. Standing to attention on Ren’s lap, he began to flick his tail back and forth warily and said, ‘ _There_ _’s someone outside. I think they might have been there for a while._ ’

To hide the fact that Caïn had told him, Ren looked down in mock puzzlement that he knew he wasn’t very good at, and followed Caïn with his eyes as the fox hopped onto the back of the sofa and peered down into the street. The two of them followed suit: Ren just caught sight of someone moving behind a building. In the darkness, only the movement made them stand out.

“Is that…”

“We should probably go,” Norhan said, his voice harder than before.

Ren had the joy of going to find Ryhad and telling him that they needed to leave. Luckily, Ryhad took it well: as predicted, he had internalised the advantages of avoiding fights when they weren’t entirely necessary, and he agreed that they should leave as soon as possible. Once everything was collected, they left via the back door, climbing over the wall into an alleyway.

They went as quietly as four people and a fox could, with the plan to get a decent distance away, hopefully not run into any troll reality instances, and settle down until 6am. Ren thought this was a great improvement to whatever they’d been doing before, and was very happy to run away — it almost worked, too.

‘ _I suppose we should have expected this,_ ’ Caïn said resignedly when they heard the anxiety-inducing clatter of footsteps behind them. Norhan picked his sister up, and they began to run.

It was not easy to run through darkness. The sun was a while away from rising yet, and the most visible thing around was Caïn’s fur, which didn’t spell very good news for their chances at escape. Ren considered picking him up to hide him, but never got around to it: as they rounded a corner into a different street, they heard more footsteps and realised they were being surrounded.

Someone shouted something in a language none of them knew. That only heightened the panic swimming in Ren’s gut. He wanted to run faster but also didn’t want to overtake the others: he felt locked-in, unable to truly get away from the threat closing in from all sides now. There was another shout, longer this time, with even more words none of them understood. Then, just as they passed in front of an official-looking building, the straight lines of its façade coated in moonlight, someone shouted, “Wait!” in English.

None of them was stupid enough to wait just because they’d been asked, but more followed: more that Ren lost, because he knew some words of English but had never bothered to learn it properly. He only faltered when the other two slowed down; just as he was turning around to see what was wrong, his vision shimmered, like water vapour had risen in the air. The shapes he could make out in the dim light warped, and he almost lost his balance. For a brief moment he thought he was light-headed from exhaustion, but that was a flimsy hypothesis at best, and it was swiftly crushed when the tower spoke.

“Ding dong! The instance game ‘All Hearts as One’ has been triggered. At 5:01 on January 9th, 2018, eight players have safely entered the game.

“Sandbox loading…

“Data loading complete…

“Eight friends have been assembled. Let’s play!”

Everything went dark.

When Ren opened his eyes, he was definitely not in the real world anymore. In front of him was a giant podium decorated with saccharine flower arrangements. To the right of it was his group; to the left were the others, but in each group there was one more person than there ought to have been. Once he realised this, he started, and was about to ask the others why there were now two Norhans, but then there came a great thumping sound from in front of them and he stopped thinking altogether.

The monster came slowly. It waddled up to the podium and jumped onto it. Ren stared.

“Welcome!” cried a smaller monster from beside the main monster. “Welcome all friends to Kirby’s Relay Race!”

It was Kirby. They were a massive pink blob with feet and a smile that promised nothing but love and acceptance, and by them stood a Waddle Dee that was equally adorable. Neither of them had lost any of the friend-like qualities of their designs in becoming big (and they were _very_ big) but that just meant they were even more shamelessly distinctive among all the other monsters and bosses they’d met so far.

“You can’t do that!” Ren shouted despite himself. “That’s copyrighted!”

“Kirby doesn’t recognise copyright!” the Waddle Dee explained firmly, and Kirby tapped their feet happily as if in agreement. “Poyo!” they said.

With a small cough, the Waddle Dee resumed. “Friends, let’s all have fun! We’re going to play a relay race, okay? You all have to play or it won’t be any fun at all.”

“Poyo!”

“Yes, exactly! This is to test your friendship! Over there are five houses,” —they gestured with a stubby paw-like thing— “and inside some of them are awful monsters! Oh no! Kirby doesn’t approve of monsters!”

“Poyo…”

“You are so right. Monsters are not friends. So you all need to defeat the monsters! The first team to defeat the monsters and come out of it all friends is the winner! Kirby will be very happy with you and give you a reward.”

“Poyo!”

“Ding dong!” the tower chimed in, to save them all from vague instructions. “Welcome to Kirby’s Relay Race! The players have been divided into two groups. The rules for the game are as follows.

“First: doppelgangers have infiltrated the teams. There—”

“This is a test of friendship!” the Waddle Dee exclaimed with great feeling. “Doppelgangers are not friends!”

“There must be no doppelgangers in a team for it to win,” the tower continued, calmly oblivious to the interruption. “The number of real players is not specified. If one original member succeeds, the entire team is considered to have succeeded. Once a doppelganger has been killed, it will melt.

“Second: there are five houses for each team. Three out of five contain monsters. Monsters must be defeated once found, but the number of houses that must be inspected to pass the game is equal to the number of true players in the team at the time they announce completion.

“Third: a team can announce completion at any time. The first team to do so with the aforementioned requirements fulfilled will be considered the winner.

“Remember: let’s all be friends!”

“Poyo!”

Ren looked back at the houses at about the same time everyone else did. A fair distance from the podium stood two rows of five houses, separated by a space large enough to fit another house. Each house was candy-coloured, with rounded edges and roughly similar designs. They all had little chimneys, one floor, one window with a window-box of flowers, and it looked as if a child might have drawn them. As Ren examined them, there was a deep rumble; everyone tensed, ready to fight if Kirby turned out to be vicious after all, but it was only a giant wall rising between the two groups, stopping just as the podium so they could all still see Kirby. It was made of opaque glass, and — once fully-risen — reached up to four metres, successfully isolating them.

‘ _I_ _’d imagine it cuts off sound, as well. I wonder why. I think the difficult part is going to be making sure Cade doesn’t get a monster in her house, because those instructions certainly made it sound as if the monsters will come close to killing you. If—_ ’

“Wait!”

Ren’s entire group turned round to look at the podium again. Kirby was frowning, stamping their feet and letting out angry poyos; the Waddle Dee pointed down at them in an accusatory way and said, “You have one too many friends with you!”

“I thought that was the point,” Ryhad said dryly.

“The fox must come here!” the Waddle Dee insisted. “Don’t break the rules! That isn’t friendly!”

Caïn lowered his tail, looking as innocent as he possibly could. ‘ _Well, this is awkward._ ’

“Here, now!”

With deep reluctance but equally deep apprehension at how angry Kirby seemed to be getting, Ren picked Caïn up and took him to the podium.

‘ _Are you going to be okay?_ ’

‘ _Always, yes. I worry about you. I doubt they_ _’ll let me communicate with you for this one._ ’

‘ _What?! But that_ _’s not—_ ’

‘ _Fair? It is, actually. Oh well. Do your best._ ’

The Waddle Dee picked Caïn up into their very round arms. “There!” they said, and Kirby smiled again. “Now we’re all ready to have fun! And if all of you die, we can give it to the Sleeping King! The Sleeping King loves little animals like foxes. We will be favoured!”

“Poyo!”

Ruefully, Ren watched Caïn struggle to find a comfortable position in the Waddle Dee’s arms. He tried to communicate but, as predicted, could not. He felt like he’d just given a pet cat to a kennel and now had to watch it suffer.

“Everyone is ready to have fun!” the Waddle Dee announced. “Let’s begin!”

From an unspecified place, theme music began to play. It rapidly became clear that the black tower did not have access to the same quality of composers that Nintendo did. Deciding not to worry about it, Ren turned back to form a circle with the others. He felt strangely naked without Caïn there, but couldn’t let them know, and so tried to be proactive about this.

“Maybe the doppelgangers can’t use abilities,” he said gesturing at the two Norhans who were sizing each other up. Cade was looking between them curiously; Ryhad rolled his eyes.

“If it was that simple, that wouldn’t be the entire point of the game. Both of you, transform.”

“You could say please,” one said while the other commented on what a domineering thing to say it had been. Both transformed successfully.

“Well,” Ren said, looking at them. “That didn’t help. What if like…Cade asks him something only he knows?”

Ryhad was looking at them too, with more disapproval in his eyes. “That’s too easy. Whisper of the Sea needs secrets to activate and the tower wouldn’t know they’re secrets unless it can know everything about us: I think it’s naïve to assume it wouldn’t be able to answer a single personal question. It’s got to be something more complicated than that. We need to start with the actual game, anyway. Cade should be left until we know for sure which houses are safe for her to go to. Ren, you go first.”

“Are you sure?”

Ryhad looked at him, lifting his eyebrows. “This type of thing isn’t your forte,” he reminded him.

It was a fair point. Nodding, Ren began to jog towards the houses. The theme music continued on in the background, an ear-grating melody that never ended and never really changed, either. By the time he got to the houses, it was the only thing he could hear. For a moment or two, he checked the houses to see if any of them seemed likely to have a monster, but nothing differentiated them from each other, so in the end he chose the left-most house.

He was rewarded with a surprise attack from Booler. With a yelp, he leapt to the side of the one-room house, away from the cartoon ghost. Like an idiot, he hadn’t got his chains out, so shouted, “In the name of the moon I punish you!” all in one breath, and shot them at Booler, who was summarily slammed into the wall. With a squeal, it burst out from between the chains and launched itself at him: it was fast, and hit him square in the chest so he too was thrown back against the wall with force that rang through his bones and made his eyes pop with black spots for a few seconds. Temporarily sightless, he shot a chain up in a zig-zag in front of him and grimaced as Booler threw itself at it, but managed to hold his defence up. Then, before Booler could try again, he wrapped his chains around it, squeezing tighter and tighter; it wailed and thrashed about, but the chains couldn’t be broken and it couldn’t get out of them. They ate into it, further and further. Ren looked away before the end: he already had the weight of a video game character’s death on his hands, he didn’t need to _see_ it.

When it was over, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath. As he did — as the adrenaline seeped out of his body — he realised that this didn’t feel right.

He wasn’t even badly hurt. That Booler could not have killed him in a million years, not unless he were severely handicapped, and there was nothing in the game to handicap him. No other monster came to finish the job. The house was empty but for him and a corpse. The game’s difficulty wasn’t in the monsters. Where was it, then?

Other things didn’t add up. Caïn had said that the barrier probably cut off sound as well as sight: why did the tower care so much? Why did it matter if they saw each other?

He wasn’t good at thinking. All he had were bad feelings and observations. Something didn’t add up: he knew that much. It was a little squirm in the pit of his stomach, but that was all he had: he wasn’t good at working out why, or where it came from, or where the inconsistencies were, not when he didn’t have Caïn there to ask the right questions and confirm things so that he knew he was right. He really wasn’t good at this if Caïn wasn’t with him, and—

He paused, looking up.

He wasn’t good at this if Caïn wasn’t with him. But no one else knew that. He was the only one who knew that. To everyone else, he was someone who occasionally came up with amazing solutions: he’d done it in Grandma’s instance, and he’d done it on the third floor. So why had Ryhad been so rude earlier? Why had he acted like he knew Ren wasn’t good at this alone?

The background music reeled around, an incessant loop of cheery electronic notes. Beneath them, Ren realised that he was not the only person who knew about Caïn’s help. The tower knew too, or it wouldn’t have taken Caïn away for this game. If the tower knew, a doppelganger would know.

The tower had never said there was only one doppelganger per team.

Heart beating just a little too fast for comfort, Ren looked up at the door without truly seeing it. Then, he walked towards it, and did not put his chains away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: poyo! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
> 
> luta: poyo! ೭੧(❛▿❛✿)੭೨
> 
> mirenwe: p-poyo? (❁°͈▵°͈)
> 
> jiirva: you all disgust me


	19. poyo means 'you're my best friend' in kirby but it also means 'i'm going to kill you' so never let your guard down

When Ren returned to the others, they had apparently managed to identify the doppelganger. For the space in between one stuttered heartbeat and the next, he had worried that — if this Ryhad really was a doppelganger too — he’d have convinced the others to kill the wrong Norhan, but of course that wasn’t logical. A doppelganger’s aim was to go unnoticed and sabotage a team that way, and there was no point to killing the members.

‘If one original member succeeds, the entire team is considered to have succeeded’. If a real person was killed, the rest of the team could still win. And equally, Ren realised with a sinking feeling, if one of the players wasn’t here because they’d been replaced by a doppelganger, they would still be considered to have won, because the rest of the team had.

More and more things made sense. If a game seemed easy, you had already lost: Ren felt that truth drilled into his head as he walked up to the others.

“We got it,” Ryhad said, looking down at the melted mess on the sand-coloured stone. It was like a wax figure of a human had been melted down and left to solidify again; it looked totally inhuman, and that was a blessing. Ren looked away. The real Norhan was hugging his sister, saying encouraging things to her that Ren could actually understand, now they were in the tower. He looked at them, nodding, and bit his lip.

“How did it go?”

Ren wasn’t very good at having secrets: he jolted as if he’d been shocked, and looked up into Ryhad’s eyes. There was nothing unusual there. There wasn’t the slightest hint that he was less than human. But then, there hadn’t been for Norhan either.

“Poyo!”

They all looked around to see Kirby stamping their feet, their eyes scrunched together in contrition. The stamping shook the entire instance.

“Oh no!” the Waddle Dee said, shifting their hold on Caïn, who looked unhappy but resigned to being lugged around like a bag of flour. “Is it too slow for you? It’s too slow, isn’t it? We want to have fun with our friends!” they exclaimed at both groups of players, looking from side to side of the opaque barrier. “You’ve got to be quicker than that! Don’t you know who your friends are?”

“Ding dong! A time limit has been initiated. All players have fifteen minutes left. If neither team has announced completion by the end of the countdown, both teams will be considered to have lost. Further announcements will follow.

“Let’s pick out the doppelgangers and win with our friends!”

Caïn was looking at Ren meaningfully, but he couldn’t tell what he was trying to say. Reading lips was, of course, impossible.

“Which of us is going next?” Ryhad asked. “Ren, I take it you met a monster?”

“Y-yeah… It wasn’t very difficult, though.”

Ryhad nodded; stepping forwards, Norhan volunteered to try the next house, and this was seen as an acceptable plan. He left, and all that remained after his footsteps had disappeared was the repetitive, sugary background music, and the occasional bar or two that Kirby hummed tunelessly.

The three of them stood together with the melted doppelganger. Ren couldn’t calm down. He kept sneaking glances at Ryhad, trying to find something that was different about him, but there was nothing there. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t think he was wrong. There were other doppelgangers: there had to be. Everything pointed to it — the vague rules, the deceptive simplicity of the game, the wall that cut the groups off from each other so they couldn’t see it if the other group worked out the trick. He wasn’t wrong, he knew he wasn’t, but he couldn’t just _kill_ somebody, and especially not a friend. Not everyone was like him: some people died when they were killed.

He couldn’t kill a friend. But a doppelganger wasn’t his friend. Right? He didn’t know. What if this was all just panicked reasoning — what if it wasn’t right? He needed Caïn here to tell him if he was making sense or not.

“Are you alright?”

Ryhad was looking at him strangely: was it that bad? Was he that noticeable? Would a doppelganger even care if he looked weird? But wouldn’t a doppelganger also do anything to make sure he thought they were real?

“Yeah, I’m fine!” he eventually replied, his voice a little too high. He realised that, subconsciously, he had ended up closer to Cade than Ryhad, almost touching her. She didn’t appear to mind it, or to be doing anything at all.

Ryhad nodded and looked away again. His profile, too, was as it ever was. He said nothing else — ordinarily, would he have said anything? Ren couldn’t tell. Keenly, he felt the need for another hint, something else to tell him he was right, but he knew on another level that the tower had already given him a wealth of hints. Time was running out. Ryhad would go next. Should he wait for that? Should he talk to Norhan about it? Maybe he ought to do that.

…

What if Norhan was a doppelganger too?

The thought came to him and he felt as if he’d missed a step in walking down stairs; for a moment, he was in free-fall. There was no way, there was no way — but _why not?_ The tower had not specified a number of doppelgangers. It hadn’t specified one, and it hadn’t specified two. The only certainty was that there was at least one, and that he wasn’t one. Very briefly, he considered that possibility too, but that was a level of psychological trickery he didn’t want to get involved in.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, he tried to concentrate on what he knew for sure: there was something wrong, and it was more than likely that there was another doppelganger. Ryhad had been unkind to him in a way that wasn’t at all justified unless he knew about Caïn, and when was Ryhad ever unkind to him, anyway? He was only rude about Ren being high maintenance, or being too trusting. He had never cast doubt on Ren’s intelligence: Ren’s friends from school did that sometimes, and maybe he’d just got used to it, but Ryhad had never said anything of the kind.

Was that enough proof?

“Hey,” he said, staring at the houses across from them. He didn’t know how much time had passed since Norhan had entered the second one. He didn’t think the background music had looped more than once. “How did you work out which was the doppelganger, anyway?”

“He was acting strange,” Ryhad simply. “Small things that didn’t make sense.”

It was curt; it was short. It was a convenient answer for a doppelganger to give, as it implied that only people who acted strange were doppelgangers, but Ren couldn’t remember either of the Norhans acting at all strange. More to the point, Ryhad hadn’t discussed anything with him all this time. _That_ was strange, but strange with a purpose: if Ryhad started to discuss the game with Ren now as he usually did — started thinking aloud like he always did when thinking aloud was practical — there was always the possibility that Ren would work out that there was more to this game than was obvious. It was, again, convenient, for a doppelganger.

While he hadn’t been paying attention, Ren had slowly begun to see this Ryhad as unreal.

Maybe he was being irrational. Maybe. But he was sure that there was something going on here, and he was sure…

No.

He wasn’t. He wasn’t sure at all. But he trusted his friendship with Ryhad, and he trusted that he knew him better than this.

Gently moving in front of Cade, he said with a voice that trembled, “I’m so, so sorry.”

‘Ryhad’ only had the time to look around in shock before a chain shot through his heart, ripping it out through the gaps in his ribcage. Ren couldn’t look: he only heard the sounds. Then, his hands shaking, he turned around, terrified that he’d see a corpse. When he saw a puddle of melted wax, he did not feel relief. He just felt blank.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, to Cade. He turned around carefully, so she wouldn’t see. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“Was he a doppelganger too?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, he was.”

There was nothing else he could say: the proof was already on the ground behind him. When Norhan came back out from the cartoon house, Ren could offer nothing but apologies to the concern that appeared on his face like scratch marks on rock.

“There was another one?” he asked, taking over the job of making sure his sister didn’t have to look at the remains of the doppelgangers too long.

“Yeah. It’s just…this makes so much more sense, right? Like, the wall’s to stop us seeing if the other team worked it out, and he was saying things that didn’t make sense, and the instructions were really suspicious, and the tower never told us there was only one, and, and…” And he couldn’t get himself to shut up, or talk properly.

“Whoa there, it’s okay. It’s okay, yeah?” Norhan moved over to him too, stroking his hair back from his face. “You did really well, kid. Calm down, okay? You did well. Let’s just get this finished and we can meet up with the real Ryhad again.”

Cade had to go next. There were three houses remaining, and — according to Norhan — one monster left. With the level of monster Ren had fought, and knowing that she had kept Dracula at bay for a not-insignificant length of time, there was reason to believe she would make it out fine even if she did encounter the monster by a terrible stroke of luck. So off she went, and the two men watched her go. Behind them, Kirby hummed to the background music, but not loud enough to drown out Ren’s thoughts. He hadn’t been able to calm them down since he’d called the other doppelganger. They swarmed.

There was no reason to believe that this Norhan was a doppelganger too, he reminded himself, trying to return to reason. He was getting paranoid, that was all. The instance was bright as sin, hurting his eyes if he left them open too long, and the music was grating his mind down to mush: that was all. His nerves were just shaken, that was all.

But Norhan didn’t have wolf ears or a tail anymore.

Ren had noticed that without quite processing it. He wasn’t sure if it meant anything: all he knew was that when he had talked with Norhan in the apartment, he had had his wolf features, and he had them no longer. Maybe that was natural.

“How did you realise Ryhad was the extra doppelganger, though?” Norhan wondered aloud, his eyes still on the door his sister had gone into. “Just small things?”

“Y-yeah, mostly.” Ren’s heart was a distressed bird in his ribcage. He couldn’t calm it down. “Hey, your tail’s gone, what’s up with that?”

Immediately, he wanted to slap himself. ‘What’s up with that’? What the hell had made him say that, of all things? Why had he asked in the first place? What if Norhan _was_ a doppelganger and he’d just alerted him?

Norhan looked at him, and then down at his own butt, as if to check there was indeed no tail there. “You’re right,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Guess the time limit was up.”

“You said it’d take a day or so, though?”

“Yeah, but that’s an inexact science, right? A day or so is a pretty broad stretch of time.”

“You said it might take more than a day, though.”

“And I guess it didn’t,” he said, shrugging, and laughed. Turning to meet Ren’s eyes, he said, “What’s up? Why are you so hooked on this tail thing? You’re not starting to get suspicious of me, are you?”

Ren wasn’t very good at lying. He didn’t answer immediately. Norhan’s smile dropped.

“You suspect me, then.”

“I don’t— I mean… I don’t really—”

“Know? You don’t really know? Then don’t threaten people, Ren, come on,” he said with a rueful smile. “What are you going to do, ask me to prove I’m not a doppelganger? You know I can’t do that, and you couldn’t do it if I asked you, either.”

“But it’s weird that your ears and tail have gone back to normal,” Ren insisted, taking a step back. The looping background music whined in his ears. “And…that Ryhad knew something about me only the tower could have known, that’s what clued me in, and obviously I can’t test that with you, but the first time, in the third floor, your ears and tail stayed for ages, and they didn’t disappear and reappear at all. And you seemed so certain when you said it was going to take a day or two. And…and maybe the tower can replicate people, but it’s not allowed to be impossible for me to guess, so even if it can replicate an ability, it can’t replicate the effect of using that ability too much. There’ve got to be clues. So maybe this is one.”

Norhan looked at him. For a long time, he looked at him. The drone of the background music wrapped them up and suffocated them. Then, Norhan smiled.

“Sounds like you really thought about this one,” he said. “Should I be flattered?”

“Are…aren’t you going to…”

Backing away — he was backing away, further and further from the melted wax and the smile that didn’t fit Norhan’s face, and he couldn’t stop himself.

“Aren’t I going to defend myself? Sure I will. Physically.”

And he transformed. A hundred and fifty kilograms of snarling wolf leapt at Ren, and he yelled, caught for an instance between the screaming urge to run away and the knowledge that he would have to fight. Instinct hit him like Caïn’s voice would have normally: standing his ground on shaking legs, he shot Divine Retribution out with all the determination he could muster, and managed to stop the wolf in its tracks. It strained, growling and snapping at him so close that he could see the saliva flung from its fangs, and his mind went white. This wasn’t Norhan, this couldn’t be, so even when the wolf broke out of his chains’ hold, he didn’t hesitate: he shot a chain directly through the wolf’s mouth, up through its head.

It stopped, its jaw going slack, and the teeth that had just pierced Ren’s shoulder fell out as the wolf collapsed, and melted. There was bright pain in his shoulder, but he could barely feel it. There was just heavy breathing and the rocky seas of shock.

“Ren?”

He looked up, trying to shake himself out of what had just happened. Carefully stepping over the puddle, he jogged over to meet Cade, holding her shoulders and smiling for her. “Did you defeat the monster by yourself?” he asked. “It was a monster, right? I was worried because you took so long. Are you okay?”

She nodded, but her eyes kept flicking over to the other puddle. “Was he…also?”

“Yeah. I’m really sorry, Cade.”

She shook her head, her hair a little mess of curling straw. “Are we going to announce completion now?”

“Just…just a moment, okay? I want to check the other houses first.”

Her face scrunched up in confusion, but she didn’t protest. When he suggested it, she sat down to count out her props. Overhead, the tower announced that they had five minutes left. The other team had not yet announced completion.

If he announced it now, they had investigated a house more than the amount they needed. That was fine. He should announce it: he could see the Waddle Dee watching him from over on the podium.

But he didn’t know for sure.

It was a betrayal to even think like this. Cade was a child. What could a child do? She was completely innocent, and he had no reason to suspect her. But he was the adult here, he was the one leading the team, and he could not announce completion unless he was _sure_.

And something was sticking. He couldn’t understand why Norhan’s second doppelganger had attacked him.

Going through the motions of checking the other houses, he thought about it feverishly. It didn’t make sense to attack him so easily, from the doppelganger’s side. It had barely even tried to defend itself. Even if it had succeeded in killing Ren, Cade would have been there to win anyway, and why would the tower care about one player’s death? Winners and losers: those were what mattered. And if Cade was also a doppelganger, that attack could have made him lose the game.

Walking away from the fifth house, its cartoonish interior filled with nothing more than apples as unrealistic as the rest of it, he turned back to Cade. He had a duty: he knew this. He had a duty to secure the team’s win.

“Cade,” he said, desperate for any confirmation that she was real, “didn’t you notice that both versions of your brother were doppelgangers?”

Lining up her props, she shook her head. “They’re really realistic,” she said.

“They are, right?” He swallowed. The tower announced four minutes left. “How many props do you have this time round?”

“Nine,” she said simply, putting a banana peel in line with a little music box.

“Yeah? What did you use on the monster just now?”

She paused. “Flower pollen,” she said, pointing to it.

It was entirely possible that she had, in fact, used the pollen. She had introduced all her props to him one dreary night as they’d inched their way towards the Kiev tower, and he knew it had two uses left on it. If she’d just used it, it had one use left. She had exactly as many props as she had an hour ago, in the apartment.

Ren couldn’t be sure. He’d seen enough horror films to know that when people let paranoia get the better of them, they made mistakes. So he wasn’t sure, and he acknowledged that. But he also acknowledged that Cade had been unusually emotionless all game, even for her, and she had shown no trace of conflict over the deaths of her not-brothers. She adored her brother. Was it possible the stress was getting to her and she was closing in on herself? Yes, absolutely.

But hunches were the only handholds he had. They were the only signs the tower would give him, and he wasn’t clever enough to see any further than that.

He decided, with total, bone-deep sincerity, that if he was wrong, he would kill himself as many times as it took for him to stay dead.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice broke. “I’m so sorry, Cade.”

He shot her through the head, as quickly as he could. He watched, because he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He felt he was nothing at all, in that single second. He was connected to nothing, and had nothing to drag him back to reality — not even the painfully bright light, not even the buzzing music that blurred into itself as it looped — and he saw only her, and saw only her, and saw only her, and then saw her body melt.

Like a machine, he said, “I announce completion. We’re done.”

“Ding dong! All doppelgangers have been found, and friendship has won! At 7:39 on January 9th, 2018, the players Ren Delacroix, Ryhad Dalisirene, Norhan Eppalai and Cade Eppalai have successfully cleared the instance game ‘All Hearts as One’. The player Ren Delacroix has won the reward ‘Stars of Friendship and Love and Explosions’.

“The players Alderian Selles, Nuran Dali, Ewen Dali, and Marisa Janssen have not cleared the instance, and have earned the reward ‘Suspicious Apple Juice’.”

There was a cry of “My apple juice!” from the Waddle Dee, and then everything went white. Ren stayed quite still, and didn’t even reach down to feel the prop-shaped forms that had just appeared in his jeans pocket. He waited as the real world filtered back into existence in front of him, full of grey buildings and light pushing through overcast skies, and the burn of winter morning cold in the bridge of his nose. He waited, and when he saw his team members appear in front of him, he finally let out the breath he’d been holding.

‘ _Ren_ _…_ ’

Without realising, he’d leaned in their direction; now, his legs caught up and sprinted the few metres separating them so he could barrel into Ryhad, wrapping his arms around him and clinging as he had not clung to anyone in months. It had been so, so long, he realised — only now did he realise that his body had been aching for human contact, for the solidity of another body to hold, another person to say everything was okay, they were there with him, they would get through this together. So he held Ryhad tightly, comforting himself with the warmth and movement and alarmed “Ren?” and everything else that told him this man was still alive, he hadn’t killed him for real. And he couldn’t let go. He wanted to hug the others too, but he couldn’t let go. Searing, stupid tears were rising to his eyes and he blinked them away furiously. Something in him finally calmed when Ryhad returned the hug. He really, really should have done it earlier, but Ren would forgive him, this time.

“Aww,” came Norhan’s voice, brightened by laughter. “That one was really tough, wasn’t it? You really pulled it off, Ren: serious props for working that one out. I know I wouldn’t have been able to kill my sister’s doppelganger. You’re a good kid after all.”

He didn’t feel like one. He felt terrible, but with each second that he was back around the people whose images he had had to kill, he felt better. Everything was warmth and tight pressure and the awkward, irregular circles being stroked on his back, and then there was a tug on his jeans. Blinking at the light after having his face buried in Ryhad’s chest, he looked down to see Cade. In a small voice, in English, she said, “Thank you,” and nodded solemnly.

He broke away from Ryhad to get to his knees and hug her too. He worried the second he’d done it that he’d breached some kind of boundary, but she didn’t stiffen up or push him away. A gentle hand ruffled his hair, and then Norhan bent down to hug them both, and Ren got an arm up so he could hug him back too. Behind him, he could hear a deep male voice talking with Ryhad in English, and he blocked it out.

‘ _You did very well,_ ’ Caïn said, coming up to rub at his calves. ‘ _I_ _’m sorry it turned out to be so harrying._ ’

‘ _Did you work it out before me?_ ’

‘ _I knew. They all smelt like tower creations. That_ _’s why I wasn’t allowed: I’m not supposed to help more than a little._ ’

‘ _The tower_ _’s a bitch._ ’

‘ _It is! But it_ _’s over now and you have a shiny new prop and nobody died. Isn’t that nice?_ ’

It was. Ren kept hugging the others for a little longer just in case, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luta: what's he so upset for anyway  
> mirenwe, kindly: it's upsetting to have to kill things that look like your friends  
> luta; oh come on. i've hurt my friends loads of times. i was complicit in abandoning you to eternal purgatory-  
> jiirva: you were, yes.  
> luta: -and i helped seal you into a fate worse than death-  
> hosgard: haha yeah you did do that  
> luta: -and i isolate most of my favourites from childhood-  
> fainne: okay i don't go here and i don't know any of you people but considering how you're the common denominator have you considered that maybe the problem is you  
> luta, while the other three nod: what? no


	20. if family members won't bring out the embarrassing baby albums then what are they even good for

In winter morning light that slowly banded together to become something reasonably easy to see each other through, the two groups had a discussion.

Ren was not a part of this. He couldn’t speak enough English, so he sat back with Caïn and Cade, watching the other two talk about complicated things with the man who seemed to be the leader of the other group. For some time, Ren watched them. When he got bored of that, he got out the props the tower had given him and inspected them with Cade. They were small stars, about the same size and dimensions of the one-paper-strip origami stars some of his friends had got into making for a period of two weeks when they’d been thirteen. The difference was that these had no seams, and they glowed. He had three of them. Since she seemed eager to, he let Cade tap them.

 

[Prop: Stars of Friendship and Love and Explosions]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Normal]

[Level: 3]

[Attack: Strong.]

[Function: A cute little star imbued with Kirby’s love. Explodes upon impact, affecting anything within a 0.5 metre radius.]

[Restrictions: ‘Poyo!’ must be said before launching or the prop will not have any effect.]

[Remarks: Kirby’s tip is to not throw these at your friends, but that anyone you throw these at cannot be a friend.]

 

He looked down at Cade, sitting on the stone step next to him and peering at the stars. She stared at the lines of text with the concentration of an exam student in their first stab at studying; when she was done, she looked up and nodded, apparently gracing them with her approval.

Ren tried to give her one of the stars and there was violent and vocal refusal, so he gave that up. Instead, he offered her Caïn to hold — a duty which she undertook with great seriousness.

Kicking his feet about, Ren watched the older men and the girl who must have been his age talk things over. On the other side of them were the teenagers, and he realised after a moment that they were watching him. There didn’t seem to be any real hostility in their gazes, either. Curiously, he tilted his head to look past Ryhad’s remarkably long legs so he could meet the girl’s eyes. He gave a small wave. She gave one back, and the boy — who really had to be her brother, they looked too alike — leaned into her personal space to give one too. Ren was just returning his shy smile when the group of people who could communicate broke up, and Ryhad and Norhan came back over, blocking the teenagers out of sight.

“He had a proposition,” Ryhad said, coming to a stop and crossing his arms in front of Ren’s step. “They’d like us to stay for a time.”

“Would it kill you to start from the beginning?” Norhan asked, flashing him a winning smile when the comment received a mild glare. He then turned back to fill in the rest in an explanatory tone. “Basically, they represent one of the only groups in Kiev at the moment. Alderian, the big guy, is interested in collecting information about the game and all that, so he says he wants to interview us and share information, and he sounded kind of surprised when we said we haven’t been collecting information consciously, so I guess we missed a trick there.”

‘ _You really did, but far be it from me to judge,_ ’ Caïn said while being stroked reverently by a small girl.

“The real issue is all those little instances. The troll ones,” Norhan went on. “They’ve swarmed the city. No one really knows why, and they’ve had contact from other cities so they know this isn’t normal. The instances disappear once they’ve been cleared, but no one wants to live here with them, which is fair, and Alderian’s team is having trouble clearing them all on their own. We’re the first group of high-level players that have wandered in here, so he wants to know if we’ll stay and help them. Obviously we’ll get to keep all props we get, and there are some actually challenging instances mixed in with the troll ones, so they’re good for practice, he says.”

Dryly, Ryhad remarked, “He freely admits he hasn’t much to offer us. The reality instances are tedious: he’s essentially asking us to do menial labour.”

“So you don’t want to stay?” Ren asked, looking up at him.

His reply was a confused blink. “I never said that. I don’t really mind one way or another. You’re the one who has to decide.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Norhan said, grinning, and flicked Ren’s forehead lightly. “Did you forget you’re the one chasing your sister?”

It all clicked, and Ren opened his mouth in an O. When Norhan started to laugh at him for having forgotten, he got to his feet and vehemently defended himself by reminding them all that he had been through rather a lot in the last instance and he had the right to be a little forgetful if that’s what he wanted to do. This was accepted as fair and true; the question was put to him again, and he thought about it. After thinking about it, he looked up and said, “I want to stay and help.”

‘ _You_ _’re charmingly predictable, that’s what you are,_ ’ Caïn said while the others voiced similar opinions.

‘ _There_ _’s nothing wrong with that!_ ’

‘ _No, there_ _’s not,_ ’ he agreed, getting up to rub against Ren’s legs. ‘ _It_ _’s calming. I have nothing against the idea that I’m staying with someone who has decided it’s their duty to make friends at every opportunity they can. I think it’s a good idea, and will likely be beneficial._ ’

Either way, Vike knew he was alive, and was coming to find him. A week or two spent in one place, making friends and working together… That sounded like heaven to him. That was what apocalypses were supposed to be about: travel and new friends and teamwork. He wanted to settle down, just for a little while. He wanted to carve out a nest for himself in the rubble of this world, just for a little while.

“We’ll stay for a week,” Ryhad said, and once it was confirmed that Cade had no problem with staying either, the others agreed to the plan. It was the 9th of January; they would leave somewhere near the 20th. That sounded reasonable, and a good way to get back on their feet.

 

 

February 5th, 2018.

The hordes of trolls were rapidly approaching the clock-tower — Ren could hear them, and was having a hard time getting his hands to work. As the fastest runner, he’d been given the key to the clock and was frantically turning it in the sequence of twists Nuran had deciphered.

“Are you getting anywhere yet?!” she yelled, dripping corrosive blood onto the rumbling (and occasionally screaming) pack of trolls under the tower window.

“It’s not working!”

“It has to work!”

“You’re doing it right, right?” Ewen asked gently, abandoning his role of barricading the door to come and look over Ren’s shoulder. “It’s up, down, down, left—”

“Ewen, get back to the door right now!”

Placidly, he went back to help his double pile conveniently-placed furniture against the door. There was a great smash from downstairs — presumably the trolls had broken in through the barricades down there. Nuran swore and cut her arm deeper, splattering acid on their attackers in between launching what props they had left.

“Ren, what the hell is taking so long?”

“I’m _literally_ just doing what you told me to!” he protested, trying the code one more time.

“Then do it better!”

“That’s not helpful!”

Click-clack went the key in his shaking hand and he held his wrist with his other one to keep it steady, once again trying the pattern Nuran had worked out back at the waterfall cave.

“Oh!” came her voice, and both Ren and her twin brother (and his ability-created double) looked over to see her pause in her attempts at chemical warfare. Turning around to meet their eyes, she said, “Try right instead of left for the last part.”

He did. The key moved like butter through the clockwork path built for it; with a satisfying snap into place, it came to rest, and there was the disarming clank of the giant clock’s hands beginning to tick again.

“Ding dong!” the black tower cried happily. “The clock has started again! At 13:12 on February 5th, 2018, the players Ren Delacroix, Nuran Dali and Ewen Dali have successfully cleared the instance game ‘Rapunzel’s Deadline’ and have won the reward ‘Harmless Hair-comb’.”

“Rapunzel never even showed up…” Ewen said mournfully as they were sent back into the real world.

That was a common theme among the troll reality instances. They were roughly modelled after characters or scenarios that felt familiar, but they were always infested with trolls, and there wasn’t much you could do about it. Ren didn’t mind. He’d cleared over fifty instances since they’d decided to stay in Kiev for a spell, and he thought he was rather getting the hang of them. Half of the time, he didn’t even need to ask for Caïn’s help (‘ _That is not necessarily something to be proud of,_ ’ was Caïn’s opinion. ‘ _These are very easy instances and you are more than capable enough to clear them by yourself if you just tried, instead of getting cold feet and turning to others for help_.’).

Caïn always came with him anyway, though. He always offered help, too.

They returned to the back-alley where they’d entered the reality instance, and looked round at each other. No one was hurt badly, apart from Nuran’s rapidly-healing arm, and they had another useless prop. They grinned, and Nuran tossed a few props back to Ren, having apparently not needed them for the trolls after all. With Caïn trotting at their heels, they headed back to the main house.

They still couldn’t communicate. Who could speak with whom was a complicated affair that needed a spreadsheet, but for Ren specifically, the only options were Ryhad, Norhan, and Marisa, who happened to be Dutch and who perfectly understood his shaky grip on Flemish. The others mostly used English, and that was no help to him. It was part of the reason he enjoyed the instances: he could actually talk with his new friends there. But it wasn’t as awkward as it had been at the start: since they did know each other well from all the time they’d spent chatting with and yelling at each other in instances, it was comfortable to walk together in relative silence.

Turning into a wider street, they started to argue about which way they ought to go. Nuran wasn’t originally from Kiev and thus had as good an idea as Ren did: they gestured wildly and mostly mutely at each other, tracing maps on their hands to demonstrate their meaning, and — as one force — told Ewen to be quiet when he piped up. He was a good boy but had the worst sense of direction Ren had ever seen in a human being, and he had in fact just pointed questioningly back the way they’d come. Eventually, Caïn started to walk straight ahead, and the three of them followed him, having learnt from experience that that was the only wise course of action when they got lost instance-hunting.

It took an hour to walk back. This was a victory in and of itself: in an entire hour, they encountered no reality instances, and knew of no stragglers that had been left around the route, either. They were coming to the end of the instances. Ren almost didn’t want it to end, but the omnipresence of the black tower in the centre of the city reminded him that he would, in fact, have to get a move on again soon. An Africa Zone player called Mercy Otieno had snagged the fourth floor before anyone else, so the current plan was to train and unlock hard mode when they eventually did it too. Alderian had already cleared the fourth floor, partially by mistake. It was about time Ren tried.

He just wasn’t sure he wanted to, though, not quite yet. He wanted to keep this clock stopped a little longer.

The journey back took a little longer than it might have when Nuran’s leg (broken the day before) started to play up again and they had to go slower for her. When they did get back to the tall, comfortingly sturdy town house in which they had set up base, she just wanted to sit down and let her leg heal some more; this was not allowed. The second they made it through the door, Norhan came running down the main stairs, tail wagging excitedly.

“You guys were gone _way_ too long,” he said, grinning and waving at the twins but addressing Ren.

“It was a tough one!” Ren defended himself. “It was only like eight hours in the end, though, right? Oh, nine, I guess, because we walked back.”

“Yeah, but you missed the show of the century.” Norhan took his hand and beckoned the other two to follow up the stairs.

“I missed the what?”

“Show of the century.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“Come on, wouldn’t you rather it be a secret?”

“No!” he said, laughing as four sets of feet and one set of paws stamped up the marble stairs. “What happened?”

“Ryhad’s uncle found us.”

“I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

Ryhad’s uncle had found them. He — Kiyran Dalisirene, a man easily in his fifties but well-preserved and with the air of confidence that came from someone who knew they would soon be a silver fox — had not arrived alone. With him in one of the large rooms of the town house was a slightly younger man with excellent bone structure and unbelievably long hair in a ponytail called Rïsel, and Jessamy, a blond man with wide glasses and a vacant air that was probably deceptive.

Kiyran was everything amiable and avuncular: it was an eventful set of introductions. The needling question was how they’d found them.

“It’s all thanks to that tower announcement, you know,” Kiyran said, slicking back his already-slicked black hair and then going in for a stroke of his stubble just to round the movement off. He had an arm around his nephew and was sitting next to Rïsel on a sofa that seated three. Ren sat across from them; Norhan and his sister were on the other chair. Since the entire conversation was going to be in French, Nuran had announced she was going to go and rest her leg and to call her when they went back to a civilised language; she and Marisa had taken Ewen off with them in a clear attempt to give the others some privacy. Jessamy and Alderian were up in Alderian’s hallowed study, discussing things Ren couldn’t have begun to guess.

“The announcement only said Europe District something,” he pointed out, leaning a little further forwards, but not enough to squish Caïn.

“We worked it out,” Rïsel explained brightly. “There’s an effort in Paris to map all the different districts and zones and so on, and it just so happened that someone who came there to get information had also been to Krakow, and recognised the number.”

“And we figured you’d have gone after my Foryn anyway,” Kiyran said in a jovial voice. “Ryhad said she was doing well, but you know him — not a word more than he needs to say — so what did you think? How was she getting on?”

“Probably better than most people,” Ren said truthfully.

“That’s my girl. What about Erlen?”

“Very pregnant.”

He sucked in air between his teeth. “Bad time for it. Well, she’s a sturdy girl, she’ll make it through somehow. We’d have paid them a visit, but Foryn’s made it very clear ever since the divorce that I’m only supposed to visit her once a year, and she’s as stubborn about these things as her mother was, so what can you do?”

“It’d just make things awkward if I were there too,” Rïsel — apparently similarly desirous to explain why they’d rushed to find Kiyran’s nephew before his flesh-and-blood daughter — said. Ren did not immediately understand what he meant.

‘ _They_ _’re sitting quite close together,_ ’ Caïn hinted lazily, curling up on Ren’s lap, and then it clicked.

“Oh!” he said. “Oh, okay. Well, I mean, they’re doing fine! Like, as fine as anyone can do. Did you just sort of guess we’d come to Ukraine after that?”

“There are rumours…” Rïsel said with an enchanting smile at Kiyran, as if asking for his agreement.

Kiyran obliged: “You four have been making a name for yourself! Naturally I wouldn’t expect anything less from my nephew.” He slapped the said nephew on the back. Ryhad looked as if he was somewhere very far away.

Ren laughed, only a little nervously. “Well, I mean, we’re getting there, I guess!”

“You’ve all cleared the third floor, even the kid.”

“Getting there!” Norhan repeated for Ren, cheerfully. “We’ll be attacking the fourth floor soon. Got to catch up with everyone else.”

“We haven’t even cleared the third yet,” Rïsel pointed out.

“Hey, we can’t all be winners.”

Rïsel burst into a peal of bell-like laughter that he surely must have practised because nobody had a laugh that charming, and for a moment Ren couldn’t take his eyes off him. Kiyran begin to talk again.

“The thing is,” he was saying, bringing his long-suffering nephew closer, “we were wondering if we could borrow Ryhad for a bit.”

Ren and Norhan blinked in unison. Cade, who was absorbed in an English book Alderian had lent her and which she was reading at a steady rate of a page a day, didn’t seem to mind either way. Caïn was asleep.

“Borrow him?” Ren asked.

Sighing, Ryhad brought himself back into the conversation. “They have asked if I wouldn’t attack the third floor with them. Of course, it’ll be the fourth floor for me. There’s no real strategy to the idea: it’s just for the sake of familial reconnection.”

“You sound just like your dad,” Kiyran said with an air of pride.

Ignoring this, Ryhad continued; “Jessamy came here with the purpose of talking to Alderian, because they’re both in the information-collecting business. I know Alderian was disappointed in how little attention we’ve paid to the world around us, so I’m sure he won’t mind Jessamy staying a while. My uncle and Rïsel are mostly interested in attacking the tower in the next day or so. I think we can all agree it would be foolhardy to do it in groups of more than four, though, so we wouldn’t be able to do it all together. As such, while I have no objection to attacking the tower with my uncle, if you wanted me to attack the tower with you instead, to raise the chances of triggering hard mode, that would take priority.”

There was a fond murmur of “He hasn’t changed at all” between Kiyran and Rïsel, which went stubbornly ignored by Ryhad. He was looking at Ren, his eyes boring into him in a way that suggested he very much wanted Ren to step in and save him from something.

‘ _What do you think I ought to do?_ ’

‘ _You_ _’re asking me? I don’t know. Talk to him outside. Leave me here, though._ ’

“Uh, can I talk with Ryhad outside for a second?”

They went outside. As the heavy wooden door closed behind them, it cut off the sound of Norhan asking Kiyran what Ryhad had been like as a child. They were left in relative silence, and shadows.

“So I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to attack the tower with them,” Ren said quietly, rather enjoying the tangible sense of awkwardness that was hanging over Ryhad like an ill-fitting coat.

“I don’t,” was the honest answer.

“Why not?”

“He’ll spend the entire time talking about how much I’ve grown: he treats me like a child at every opportunity.”

“It’s just one tower floor.”

There was an expression of…not quite sulkiness, but distressed uncertainty on Ryhad’s expression, like polish over the stone. He didn’t seem to know how to respond immediately, so — still speaking in a low voice, so the words wouldn’t pass outside the bubble that contained only the two of them and the air in between — Ren spoke first.

“Is he a bad person?”

“No, not at all.”

“Is Rïsel?”

“He isn’t either.”

“Do you hate being with them?”

“I wouldn’t say _hate_ …”

Ren opened the door behind him, poked his head inside and said, “I’m cool with it! He’ll attack the tower with you.”

Inside the room, there were sounds of satisfaction; outside, in the gloom of the corridor, Ryhad hissed Ren’s name, almost panicked, and Ren gave him a smile with exactly no sympathy in it.

“It’s one floor,” he said, reaching up to pat Ryhad’s cheek. “You’ll be fine for one floor. And family’s important.”

He was going to say something else, but found he couldn’t all of a sudden. The words were stuck in his throat: for a moment, he grappled with them, and then turned around to go back inside. He’d got his point across, anyway. He didn’t need to hammer it in, not when the reverberations shook through his whole body and left him fragile.

“We can do the fifth floor together, okay?” he said, forcing a smile over his shoulder at Ryhad. “Norhan and I’ll get the fourth one done while you’re gone. Then we’ll be on the same page again and we can go find Vike again, right?”

Ryhad seemed to hesitate to come back inside the room for a second or two. He stayed in the shadowy corridor, looking at Ren as if there was anything at all interesting to see there. His eyes were bright with the sunlight that washed into the off-white room through waxy windows behind Ren. Then, he nodded, and stepped inside.

“That’s a promise,” he said, and went to see if he could stop his uncle telling Norhan stories of his youth.

This time, it was Ren’s turn to watch him. He wondered if that exchange had meant more than he’d initially thought it did. He felt as if he’d waded into a pool only to sink to unexpected depths.

It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. They were unexpected, but not uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard: one stands in the sun while the other stands in the shadow.....................isn’t this just like their personalities  
> mirenwe: idk that seems a bit on-the-nose  
> fainne: yeah i think you might want to take out the second part or you're just beating us over the head with it  
> hosgard: this is fair criticism, thank you! i will work on-   
> [sound of glass smashing]   
> hosgard: ......i will. uh. jiirva. are you okay.  
> jiirva: his motif is STARS. stars to my moon. it is NOT the sun. you do NOT get to say that to me. he ONLY looks best in my moonlight  
> hosgard, administering calming hugs: jiirva come on let's not be weird about this


	21. do you not feel like these chapters are getting very short? i might stick the next few together. anyway jessamy deserved BETTER

Urumqi, China.

In an abandoned apartment at the bottom of a high-class complex, three people were in a bathroom. It had not been built to house three, but they were making it work by grace of Einierre perching on the toilet, Vike standing out of the way near the door, and Acqen taking up every other inch of space with various towels and vessels of water.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Einierre said in a dead voice.

“Shut up. I spent the other night all alone in a dark, scary building just so you two could have some couple time: you can wait for me to bleach my hair.”

“I don’t see why you didn’t bleach it while we were having couple time.”

“Fuck you,” Acqen replied — this was, incidentally, the only phrase he could say in English without even a hint of an accent. “How am I supposed to bleach my hair when it’s dark and scary?”

“You’re a fourth-floor player,” Einierre muttered, but, after a shared glance with her girlfriend, gave up. They fell back to silence. Through the frosted-glass window, afternoon sunlight changed from grey to white to pink, counting down the last remaining minutes to sunset. Acqen had his hair wrapped up in a towel that would never be usable again, and was rereading the instructions on the back of the packet of hair dye. He was half-Chinese, but had trouble reading; all of them did, so Einierre hadn’t offered to help. They sat in the bathroom in relative silence, because honestly there wasn’t much else to do. Either way, Acqen was the needy type and would whine at them to come back if they left him.

“I wonder if Ren’s okay…” Vike said out of nowhere. She was looking up at the corner of the bathroom, at the peeling yellow paint. “We haven’t heard anything about him since the second floor.”

“He’s probably just late, right? Maybe he’s got his own stuff to worry about,” Einierre suggested, tapping her bare feet on the toilet lid. “He’ll be fine. He’ll get another message to us soon, and we can find him then. It’ll work out.”

“Scale of zero to ten, how powerful do you think he is?” Acqen asked, because he’d taken a bizarre interest in their goal ever since they’d reluctantly told him.

“No idea,” Einierre said at the same time Vike said, “Probably eight.” They looked at each other and Einierre grinned, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Come on, babe, he’s not going to be an eight. It’s all chance in the end: we don’t know what ability he got. Maybe he got a shit one.”

“I feel like he didn’t, though,” Vike insisted, sliding down the wall so she could sit on the slightly-damp bathroom tiles. Her jeans were very tight like that; Einierre admired the view, and lifted her eyes back up when Vike continued, plaiting her hair in an adorably absent-minded manner. “He’s always been so lucky, hasn’t he? I just feel like he _must_ have come out on top because he sort of always does, and I’m sure he’s found friends because he always does that too — you remember his graduation trip, don’t you? A boy who can get lost in the Italian countryside and come out of it three days later with a new group chat full of friends who can barely communicate with him _can_ _’t_ be doing badly. And anyway, he wouldn’t let us down, I think, or at least I really believe he wouldn’t, because we have to see each other again, and if we don’t it’ll be so sad.”

“It would be.” Einierre acknowledged this truth. “I still kind of hope he’s getting by on props alone, though. I’d hate it if he got a better ability than me. As in, any ability.”

“I bet you do have one,” Acqen said, unrolling the towel a little to check how his hair was doing. “Reserve players grow them sometimes.”

“Who told you that?”

He shrugged, putting the towel back. “Group back in Moscow. I never actually talked to them, but my cousin corresponded with them here and there. Dangerous, those ones. Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of them, but they knew a lot. Well, my cousin does too,” he said with a grin.

“If I do have an ability, I’m not seeing it,” Einierre said petulantly. “The tower can hand it to me on a silver platter or not at all.”

“Darling, I don’t think that’s really its style.”

“It can become its style.”

Smiling, Vike was about to say something back, but in the middle of making her way to the words, she stopped, her eyes widening. “Window,” she said.

That was enough. Einierre jumped off the toilet, whipping out a knife longer than her forearm, but her instincts could not even graze Acqen’s. He had already transformed: where he had stood an instant before now stood a teenage girl with pitch black hair and arms that, when aimed at the frosted-glass window, elongated like  they were on a spring, smashed through the glass, and wrapped around something out in the fading light. The teenage girl leapt to the windowsill and then, in the blink of an eye, turned into a greying woman in her fifties with scissors for hands and a death grip around the intruder who had been outside.

Acqen crouched on the windowsill in his new body, and his scissors pierced the delicate skin of the intruder’s neck. She was breathing very quickly, eyes wide and staring up at him. There was no attempt at using props or abilities. Her capture had taken less than three seconds: she must have known there was no point.

A glance at Vike proved that this woman was the only intruder, so they watched her, and watched Acqen. He did not remove the scissors. A drop of blood began to trickle down the woman’s neck — it glinted in the last scraps of sunlight.

With obvious effort, the woman spoke in Russian. Acqen replied. So followed a curt back-and-forth; after the fifth exchange, he let her go. She gave a short bow, and turned away. He watched her leave, crouched like a cat ready to pounce. When she was gone to his satisfaction, he climbed down off the windowsill, transforming into his usual form, bleached hair, towel and all. Einierre hesitated to call it his original form, because she truly had no idea if it was that. He was astonishingly baby-faced for the thirty-year-old he claimed to be.

“What was that?” Vike asked pleasantly, stepping over his basins of water to hang a spare towel over the now-broken window.

“She was…what’s that expression you have? Devil talk? Talk about devils?”

“Speak of the devil?”

“That’s it. She was from my cousin, speak of the devil.”

“How did she find us?” Einierre asked, her voice low. She hadn’t put away the knife yet: realistically she knew that while Vike had proved she could hold her own against Acqen now she knew most of his forms, Einierre herself could not, but she still wasn’t about to let him get away with giving out their location.

But he was frowning too, looking down at the rippling water in one of the basins. “I don’t know. We’ll need to move once my hair’s done.”

“We’re waiting for your fucking hair?!”

“Einierre darling, you can’t rush dyed hair,” Vike said without a hint of concern. Her own hair was dyed to hell and back to a pleasing silver-rose, so she clearly had sympathy for his plight.

“Okay. Okay, fine, we’ll wait for your hair.” But she couldn’t relax with the knowledge that people knew where they were. She began to pace in the limited space that the bathroom offered. “You promised you wouldn’t cause us trouble,” she spat at Acqen.

He looked back with a threat in his eyes and a challenge in the curl of his lips, but said only, “I won’t cause you trouble. I said, we’ll leave right after this.”

He seemed sincere, at least. He always did, when he was trying to prove that he should be allowed to stay with them.

“Did she at least say anything interesting?”

“Maybe.” He sighed, slumping back against the side of the compact bathtub, and the tension left his body. He looked, to any but those who knew him, like a disheartened, down-on-his-luck young man. Only his eyes gave him away: those were still cool and calculating. He asked, “What do you two know about players whose heart-rates sped up just before the earth went online?”

 

 

Kiev, Ukraine.

Ren didn’t hear about all the commotion until the day after Kiyran and the others had arrived, and this was in part because he wasn’t really bothered. His goal was to find his sister, not work out the secrets of the towers: he didn’t have the intellect or intention to get anywhere close to that, and so only paid attention when Norhan found him and said they needed to ask him something.

Ryhad, Kiyran and Rïsel had left that morning for the tower. Given how long tower floors usually took, it was expected that they wouldn’t return for a few days, which gave the others ample time to finish up the remaining troll instances and attack the fourth floor themselves. Ren had been about to go instance-hunting with the twins again, but when they (having heard the story the previous night) realised what this was about, they gestured for him to stay while they went ahead with Marisa. He’d far rather have cleared a nice reality instance than sit around talking, but he followed Norhan anyway, Caïn trotting at his heels.

“It’s not going to be that bad,” Jessamy said kindly when they came into the office. “No need to look put-upon.”

Alderian was at one end of the spacious room, looking through a frankly stunning feat of filing with a small frown; by his desk, on a small chair all of her own, sat Cade. She seemed to be practising English script. She was so absorbed in it that she didn’t come over to sit with her brother: he sat with Ren and Jessamy in the other corner, almost boxed in by tall bookcases that look disorganised but in all likelihood probably weren’t.

Realising that he must have looked a lot graver than he meant for, Ren shook his head and smiled, gently putting Caïn down on the ground by his feet because the chair wasn’t quite wide enough. Jessamy was smiling back at him, his buttercup-yellow hair pushed back behind his ears — he wasn’t as captivating as Rïsel was, but he had a very nice smile. It seemed to suggest everything would be alright.

With the air of a veteran interviewer, Jessamy said, “I only wanted to ask you about your experiences before the earth went online — that handful of days. Do you remember?”

Of course he remembered. Even if his memory hadn’t been marginally improved by the tower’s interference, that wasn’t the sort of thing he could forget. He nodded.

“Do you remember anything strange happening to your body? In particular, do you remember your heartbeat racing at all? Anything like a fever?”

Ren blinked, and shook his head. “Nothing like that happened. It was just…I mean, I was just hanging out in my house for a bit, and then I went through a game, and when I woke up, the earth went online.”

“What do you mean, when you woke up?” Jessamy asked kindly.

“Uh, it was like…after the game, a monster did something to me that made me pass out.” He felt a little guilty calling the moon god a monster when they’d apparently blessed him with both his ability and Divine Retribution, but he wasn’t sure what else to call them.

“What sort of thing?”

“Uh…kissed me on the forehead. Or was it forearm? I think it was forearm…and was it even actually a kiss? It felt like one,” he said while Norhan stifled laughter beside him, “but like, it was a moth, so I’m not even sure they have mouths.”

“Moths have mouths,” Norhan told him in a tone of mirth. “I can’t believe you’ve been out here kissing the monsters. What a little stud.”

“ _Don_ _’t_ say that!” Ren objected, but laughed too, and hurried to explain. “It was literally just like it touched my forearms and that’s how I got Divine Retribution. My main prop, I mean,” he clarified for Jessamy. “And the flower fairy — she was the main monster in that game — said that I’d been blessed by the moon god.”

Jessamy blinked, pushing his hair back behind an ear again. “Well,” he said. “That’s a new one.”

“Guess you haven’t heard that one before?” Norhan asked, grinning and leaning over to ruffle Ren’s hair. “Told you he was something else.” Then, directed at Ren, “How did you even get blessed by a monster?”

“I just saved it from a cobweb.”

“Some guys get all the luck.”

“As far as we know,” Jessamy said, looking through a notebook on his lap, “that’s never happened before. But I suppose that would explain why you’re so powerful without having had your heart-rate speed up.”

“I’m not really seeing the connection…”

“We’re only just seeing it too.” He looked up and smiled. “From what we can gather, some players experienced what I described — inhumanly fast heart-rate and something like fever — before the earth went online. Those players tend to be the most powerful.”

“I had it,” Norhan said gamely. “Ryhad says he did too. And Alderian.”

Alderian looked up upon hearing his name, but, seeing that nobody needed him immediately, went back to correcting Cade’s work.

“We were assuming you must have too, because you have, to put it simply, an unfairly powerful ability,” Jessamy continued. “If you’ve been blessed by a monster, then I suppose that would also make sense, but it just raises more questions. I don’t think anyone’s ever reported a game with a moon god, either.”

‘ _They wouldn_ _’t,_ ’ Caïn said calmly from under Ren’s chair. ‘ _The moon god is highly selective and highly anti-social. You couldn_ _’t get them to lead a game in a million years. They and the sun god are mostly here to be deus ex machinae — literally, I mean. Still, it’s rare to find them._ ’

That was all very enlightening, but Ren couldn’t share any of it, and told Caïn so. Caïn laughed and told him it could be their secret.

“We’ve had a few theories regarding the heart-rate affair,” Jessamy said, and looked back over his shoulder to address Alderian in English. Some things were said. Then, he turned back around and said, “The main theory right now is to do with the people who disappeared.”

“What?”

“The idea is that when they disappeared, their life energy, or whatever it is, was redistributed amongst the remaining players unevenly. That might explain everyone’s physical enhancements; it might also explain why some people are so much more powerful than others. It isn’t all based on powerful abilities, either: some players have weak abilities but make up for it with everything else — that too is a sign of a powerful player. There have been efforts to send people to find the players who clear tower floors the quickest, to see if they underwent the same phenomenon, but it’s all quite vague at the moment.”

Ren didn’t think that was vague. He thought they’d all been putting a great amount of effort into studying something he would have shrugged off as an odd coincidence. He still couldn’t quite see the merits of it: even if they did work out what the heart-rate thing meant, would that save them? Shouldn’t they just concentrate on attacking the tower? It was what they had been repeatedly told to do.

But what if the entire thing — the earth going online, all of it — was a game? What if they were currently following the easiest path, and they needed to treat it like a tower game, and find the trick?

The consequences were, to him, overwhelming, and he decided to stop thinking about it.

‘ _Probably for the best,_ ’ Caïn commented.

“At any rate,” Jessamy — blissfully unaware of all that had just hurtled through Ren’s brain — said, “we’re not entirely sure what to do about it quite yet, but I have a lot more things I need to discuss with Alderian, so I’ll be staying until the others clear the third floor, at the least. And I was hoping you might show me one of the low-level reality instances: I’ve never heard of an entire city being full of them before.”

“Ren thinks this black tower just glitched,” Norhan said.

“Well, it might have!”

“It might have,” Jessamy agreed. “And that’s what I’d like to see! I’ve already spoken to the twins about it, and they say they wouldn’t mind me tagging along. Would you?”

“I don’t mind,” Ren said, exchanging a look with Norhan, “but it feels a bit overkill.”

“I’ll be coming too, so that’s even more overkill,” Norhan said cheerfully. “And maybe all of us going will just lure out a difficult instance or something, but hey, I’m pretty sure that all of us together will be able to do something about it.”

That was sound enough reasoning. It was decided that, once the twins and Marisa were back, a group of six would go out to one of the troll instances. Alderian said he’d want Marisa with him, so they wouldn’t go: it would be Ren, Norhan, Cade, Jessamy and the twins. The way they discussed it, it sounded as if they were planning a picnic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hosgard has taken mirenwe and fainne out for dinner]  
> [jiirva remains, desperate to soak in every instance of someone mentioning them]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [actual author’s note: it’s dawned on me that I haven’t been differentiating between reality instances and other instances at ALL so we’re just going to run with it. It doesn’t matter. Instances are instances. Anyway.]


	22. fly me to the moon (nightcore remix)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore

Marisa and the twins came back in the early afternoon. Nuran was enthusiastically hyping up her brother, who had — Marisa explained proudly — figured out the game all on his own. It seemed to have given them confidence, and Nuran was raring to get started on the next instance.

Partially confidence, partially the excitement of almost coming to the end of a task of long duration: they all felt the latter.

Before she had quite finished relaying the events of Ewen’s success to Ren in the main hall, Marisa was called upstairs by Alderian. Kicking off her shoes, she wished them luck and left. The rest collected together their props (of which they had many, but mostly low quality), made sure everyone was ready, and headed outside. In the past weeks, word had begun to spread and people had slowly trickled back to Kiev, but it was a work in progress, and the city was still by and large deserted. It had once been haunting and was now a sort of home. Ren didn’t even pay attention to the streets as they walked: he already knew them. With more enthusiasm than powers of recollection, he listened to the twins teach him random words of Ukrainian and remembered perhaps three. Norhan and Jessamy were talking; by her brother, Cade walked just a little faster than looked comfortable, because she was carrying Caïn. Before they’d set out, she’d tugged on her brother’s sleeve and asked him, very politely, to ask if she might be allowed to hold him, and she so seldom asked for anything that Ren had immediately agreed. Caïn didn’t seem to mind: sedately, he allowed himself to be cradled, and occasionally moved around or sniffed or did other animalistic things.

It took forty minutes’ walk to get to the place they had in mind: accordingly to the continually-amended map hanging in Alderian’s office, it was at the start of the nearest zone that hadn’t yet been cleared of instances.

“Here,” Nuran said in Ukrainian — one of the first words she’d taught Ren, because of its versatility — and held her hand out. In entering instances, they had to be careful to all be engulfed: through trial and error they had learnt that holding hands was a reliable way of ensuring it, thought just being in the same general vicinity also worked. Ren joined hands with the twins, and reached back to beckon the others over.

Cade was lagging behind, having apparently lost her grip on Caïn momentarily. When she saw what was going on, she hurried to catch them up. She wasn’t quick enough. None of them moved, but before they knew what was happening, the all-too familiar malaise reached them, bleaching their vision into white, and Norhan only had the time to tell his sister to go back to the base to wait before they were dragged into an instance.

“Ding dong! The group instance game ‘Mochi Mochi Mix-Up’ has been triggered. At 13:56 on February 6th, 2018, the players Norhan Eppalai, Ren Delacroix, Nuran Dali, Ewen Dali, and Jessamy Puits have safely entered the game.

“Sandbox loading…

“Data loading complete…

“Welcome to the Deserted Desert! Let’s all help the Moon Rabbit!”

“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Nuran said, looking around.

There was a lot to look at. The advertised desert stretched out in lumps and bumps around them, giving the impression that it went as far as the horizon and then no further. It was oddly claustrophobic, for scenery with nothing caging them in. The rock and sand that made up the most part of what they could see was a dusty white, like chalk, but less prone to sticking on clothes; it was speckled with little glittering granules, and some of the larger bumps around them sparkled under the blazing sunlight. Directly behind them were a number of holes in the earth. They weren’t like the entrances to burrows, but like something had fallen through and revealed a series of underground passages. Crouching down, Ren could see into one of them, and they really did seem to be tunnels. Not tall tunnels — Norhan and Jessamy, both being over the comfortable height of a hundred and eighty centimetres, would have to stoop — but tunnels all the same. They appeared to be dimly lit, but he couldn’t see how; neither could Ewen, when he started to go down one before his sister and Norhan stopped him hurriedly.

Everywhere, little white spores floated through the air. It was as Ren was batting one of these away that the thumping started.

Everyone tensed, putting hands to their respective props. The ground shook: gently at first, but steadily more violently, until the gravel jumped and it became difficult to stand up. Norhan was on the verge of transforming (Ren had been with him long enough to tell) when around the corner of a particularly large bump in the scenery came a rabbit.

It looked like an ordinary rabbit, but very large, and it was on its over-sized hind legs — presumably it used these so its front paws were free to carry what looked like a wooden mallet. Ren began to realise what the tower had meant when it had called this a moon rabbit.

“Dear children!” the Moon Rabbit said, shuffling over to them so as not to disturb them with its hops. “You’re here! You must help me!”

None of them replied. Tower monsters weren’t really the type to ask for consent.

“I need your help,” was the Moon Rabbit’s piteous claim. Its eyes grew dewy, seemingly on purpose. “Just this morning I made a nice fresh batch of mochi and wouldn’t you know it, they went missing! Help me find them again, sweet children, won’t you?”

They didn’t have a choice: when did they ever have a choice? Dutifully, they all waited for the tower to speak up, and it did.

“Ding dong! Help the Moon Rabbit find its lost mochi! All the mochi are stored within the underground tunnels. There is no time limit to this game, but every thirty minutes, the Moon Rabbit will return to see the players’ progress, and it does not like to be kept waiting.

“Let’s all do our best!”

Ren exchanged looks with the others. Those had not been very thorough rules.

“How many mochi are there?” Norhan asked the Moon Rabbit, and it turned on him, red eyes blinking sweetly. Gently, it turned the mallet around in its furry paws.

“All I know is written here, child,” it said, reaching inside a part of its fur and bringing out a scrap of paper. Norhan took it, and all of them crowded around to read it.

 

One is found when man’s skin’s lost

One is deep in snow and frost

One is held in worms’ embrace

One hides under pink and lace

One is rosy, one is sweet

One lies in the young buck’s seat

One is drowned where fish grow old

One is stored to last the cold

One is under scythe and sickle

One was frozen, now does trickle

One resides where hearts grow cold

Find my work, or ne’er grow old.

 

Ren didn’t much like the look of the last line: guardedly, he looked back up at the Moon Rabbit, who was as innocent as ever, which is to say highly suspicious.

“Don’t take the wording all that seriously,” it said brightly. “Rhyming isn’t easy, my lovely children.”

In his wispy, wandering voice, Ewen asked, “If you know this much, why can’t you find them yourself?” and was promptly dragged behind Nuran’s back while the Moon Rabbit scowled.

“You are my sweet children,” it said in a voice that brooked no argument. “You will find them for me.” Then, in more cheerful tones, “And remember, children, violence is prohibited! Moon Rabbit will know, and Moon Rabbit doesn’t like it when children act stroppy!”

With that, it turned to leave. The ground quaked until it rounded the same corner it had come by, and then the shaking stopped completely.

“What even is a moon rabbit?” Nuran wondered aloud.

Turning back to look at the tunnels warily, Ren said, “It’s like…you know how people see shapes on the moon? It’s that: I don’t know how common it is, but I know it’s a Japanese thing at least because Mum told me about it a few times — people seeing a rabbit making mochi on the moon.”

“Wait, is your mother Japanese?” Norhan asked, peering at him in a way that made him feel self-conscious.

“Y-yeah? Why?”

“I just figured, because your sister’s in China…”

Jessamy, poring over the poem, interrupted this exchange by asking, “Can you remember anything else about it? Any weaknesses?”

He felt terribly put on the spot, a situation worsened exponentially by the lack of Caïn’s calming presence by his feet. He kept wanting to reach out in his mind for him, but of course couldn’t. He shook his head. “I don’t really think there’s, like, a story, as such…”

This answer was accepted gravely.

“Oh well!” Nuran and her brother were inspecting the holes in the ground. “Do you want to get started?”

Norhan nodded, coming over to look with them. “Should we split up? There are four holes, so if the twins go together—”

“Actually,” Jessamy said, and pushed his hair behind an ear when everybody turned to look at him. Spores floated past him: he had to gently blow one out of the way to say, “I think the first might be easy. ‘Man’s skin’s lost’, it says. The tower can’t give us anything entirely impossible to do, so I wonder if this one might refer to your transformations.”

With all attention turned on him all of a sudden, Norhan scratched the back of his head sheepishly and said, “You think? I guess I’ll try…”

Smoothly, he transformed. It was as it always was: a ripple ran over his body, turning over his skin like ruptured rock in an earthquake, but instead of rubble, fur was left; his bones shifted and shuddered and reshaped, and within a matter of seconds, he was sniffing around the four holes in the ground, tail hanging low. Then his ears twitched. Digging at the edge of the third hole to open it up for his enlarged body, he managed to climb down and into the tunnel — without thinking, Ren hopped down after him, and felt the others follow.

The tunnels were as low as he’d thought, but they were wide enough that the walls didn’t seem to close in on the advancing party. Packed mud and jagged stone mixed with patched of mildewy wood to form the sloping sides of the tunnel, and at frequent intervals there were branches into other tunnels. The ground was much the same as the walls, but with objects, every so often: a broken doll, a flourishing of feathery fungi, an irregular little trail of bird-seed leading down another branch, and all manner of other things. Ren looked at them, but didn’t let himself get distracted: he kept close to Norhan’s swinging tail — the comforting mix of snuffles and padding paws that almost helped him believe Caïn was still with him — and made steady progress through the tunnels. The entire space was lit up by the spores. They were here too: floating aimlessly, they shone like fairy lights, dripping with phosphorescent dust that faded before it hit the muddy ground.

Norhan led them through many branches. The air became clammy, damp like tropical summers before the weather breaks, but cold and bone-deep. Ren and the twins stayed close together, for warmth and reassurance: it was because of this that he felt it when Nuran slowed to a stop.

“Is something wrong? Norhan, stop.”

The giant wolf in front of them did stop, and (with some difficulty) turned around in the tunnel to cock his head and wag his tail questioningly. Nuran pointed at a branch to the right of the tunnel they were in. A glowing spore was very close to her face, shining green-tinted light over her birthmark-speckled skin. “There’s water there.”

And so there was. It was the tail-end of a leak, just licking the mouth of the tunnel, but they could see it was wider further inside.

“I think…I mean,” she said, faltering, “one of the lines mentioned ice, right? And this looks melted…”

“Two lines mention ice, actually.” Jessamy showed them all: there was ‘one is deep in snow and frost’ and ‘one was frozen, now does trickle’. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea. There’s a fairly good chance we’ll find at least one of these two. Shall we split up?”

“Don’t people always die in horror movies when they split up?” Ewen asked. It didn’t seem out of any real malice, but his sister slapped him lightly on the back of the head anyway.

“Don’t mention stuff like that,” she said, taking his hand. “This isn’t even a horror movie.”

“I don’t know: the Moon Rabbit is pretty creepy…” Ren pointed out.

“It’s literally just a rabbit, Ren.”

“But big and threatening!”

“I think it’s scary too,” Ewen agreed, “but it’s a lot cuter than the trolls, so I don’t mind it as much.”

“At least you know where you stand, with trolls,” Ren muttered. The others acknowledged that this was a fair point, and might have discussed it further, but Jessamy said pleasantly, “Do you think we ought maybe to get a move on?”

He went with the twins, following the logic that Ren and Norhan were both more than capable of taking care of themselves, while both Jessamy and Ewen were not particularly strong players. Ren watched the three of them disappear down the other tunnel before allowing Norhan to gently nudge him back into a walk. They continued: hurrying, now, because there were fewer people to worry about, they jogged down the jagged turn-offs of the tunnels, and Ren began to wonder how they’d ever get out. Maybe Norhan would be able to sniff the surface out again. He thought wolves were probably capable of that.

The chase came to an abrupt end about ten turnings after they’d split from the others. Norhan came to a stop in the middle of the tunnel and honed in on a specific part of the wall, his golden eyes fixed on it with ears and tail perked to attention. With obvious care, he started to paw at the wall, and Ren leaned in to help with his significantly less sharp human hands: grimacing at the feeling of mud collecting under his nails, he dug into the wall a little way, and hit something soft. A little further, and he managed to extract a translucent white ball of mochi. Mixed in with the dirt, it still had a dusting of rice flour on it. The dirt did, however, make it look totally unappetising. With a wrinkle of his nose, he put it in his pocket and — without thinking — stroked the top of Norhan’s head. He froze halfway through the movement; apparently sensing the immediate regret, Norhan nuzzled into his hand in a silent granting of permission, and since he’d already started, Ren shrugged and kept at it.

“Nice job.”

Norhan’s tail wagged.

“Do you want to head back to the others? I can’t really remember the way, though…”

As if to tell him not to worry, Norhan turned and led the way back down the tunnels. They were, as Nuran had told her brother, remarkably un-horror film-like. There were no spooky noises but for occasional drips here and there, and their own footsteps. The spores’ light wasn’t natural by any means, but it wasn’t eerie either, once you got used to the way the shadows moved. If Ren were to complain about anything, it would be the way he realised, as they walked back, that the tunnels had changed positions. His memory had vastly improved since the earth had gone online, so he felt qualified to say so. One or two branches that he distinctly remembered coming before or after a landmark (a dripping stalagmite, some crushed machinery, an abandoned birthday cake with patchy icing) were not there anymore. There were inconsistencies. When he voiced these to Norhan, Norhan looked at him, and transformed back into a human.

As Ren had predicted, he had to stoop a little to walk normally. “I guess the tower’s just making things difficult for us,” he reasoned, taking them back through another turning. “At least this means that we can’t really be expected to find our way back to the surface alone, though, right?”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Are you?” He smiled warmly, patting Ren’s hair as if their positions were reversed now. “It’ll be fine. Let’s try to find the others.”

They found something else before that. Ren was ready to walk right by it, but he saw Norhan had stopped walking, and so stopped and turned around too. Under the ever-shifting light, there were a number of spools of thread half-embedded in the earth of the tunnel floor. They lay before the mouth of another fork.

“Are we stopping for, like…a reason? Or…”

“I was just thinking,” Norhan said, bending to look at the rose-coloured thread. “One of the poem lines was about pink and lace.”

They looked at each other. Then, they began to walk into this new tunnel.

Perhaps by grace of having been singled out as the thread tunnel, it had no branching tunnels connected to it once they were inside. It was one long, curving corridor: at times sloping up or down, at times veering so violently to one side or another that it seemed physically impossible that they hadn’t doubled back, but always the same corridor. The spores began to thin out. Like walking from the light of one street-lamp to another, the two of them hurried along the tunnel, and finally came into a domed room. It was covered, absolutely layered in haberdashery. Swathes of silks and gauze and linen carpeted the earthen ground, piled high with ribbons and lace and trimmings and tassels and buttons and bells in all colours and designs. At the other end of the room was a large wooden chest-of-drawers, one drawer open to reveal an eruption of pink satin cut with white lace.

Ren and Norhan exchanged a wary look.

“So something’s definitely lurking in here, right?” Norhan said, shifting his weight with a wild look to his eyes, as if he was raring to transform should any lurking creature attack.

“Do you want to back me up while I go check the drawer out?”

Norhan nodded, and promptly transformed. Ren got Divine Retribution out and, with a giant wolf behind him, cautiously stepped over the haberdashery. Little bells rang out with each step, and the spores nestled in the holes around the walls seemed to shiver as he approached the chest-of-drawers. He hated that. It was definitely going to be a jump scare, but no matter how many times he told himself that one was coming, he knew he’d be freaked out when it did. At least the Moon Rabbit was honestly creepy. Jump scares were cheap, he told himself, because he was weak to them.

There was nothing for it: when he reached the open drawer, he swallowed hard, and grabbed at a length of pink satin, hoping to whip it away and reveal whatever was underneath. Things didn’t go that smoothly. For a start, it turned out to be much longer than he’d expected, and as he was trying to pull the rest of it out of the drawer, there was a ripple through the fabric, and it leapt at him.

“Fuck!” he yelled, running back, but the lengths of satin rushed at him like they were imitating his chains: they wrapped around his wrists and waist and neck, tightly, and dragged him in with the force of several grown men. Norhan was already snapping at the fabric, fraying and ripping it with his fangs, but the other lengths were still taut and dragging Ren closer. He let them. The worst that could happen was death, so he let them, and — digging his heels into the ground, though it gave him very little purchase — plunged his hands into the drawer. There, everything was writhing, wriggling like silken snakes, and his fingers searched frantically for something soft. Beside him, Norhan was growling: with a vicious snap, the length around his left wrist gave way, and Norhan bit into another, but still Ren was being pulled closer and closer, and he couldn’t find anything. It was a very large drawer. He had to bend forwards while straining backwards against the fabric that choked his neck, scraping across the wooden drawer with his fingernails in an effort to find what he was looking for. When his head was almost inside the drawer, he finally did. He seized it, shooting chains through the one satin shackle that Norhan hadn’t got to, and when it broke, stumbled backwards, eventually collapsing against a bundle of buttons.

Transformed again, Norhan crouched in front of him and brushed some of his hair back for him. “You okay?”

“Hated that,” Ren said, catching his breath. “Really not for me. Got it, though.”

The mochi looked the same as the other had, but less dirty. Once it was safely put away, they left the room in a hurry.

They could not, however, hurry enough to escape the time limit. A quick check of Ren’s watch confirmed that they only had a few minutes left; almost sub-consciously, they began to jog back through the tunnels.

“Two isn’t that bad, right?” Ren asked, genuinely looking for reassurance. “I mean, if the others got one too, that’s three already, and we only have twelve to get.”

Norhan nodded, his tiny ponytail bobbing with the movement of jogging, but he was frowning. “Doesn’t this feel too easy to you, though?”

“Oh, don’t say that, come on.”

“But it does,” he insisted with a smile. “There’s no trick, you know? It’s just searching. I’m worried.”

“The troll instances were never that hard.”

For a moment or two, only the dull sound of their footsteps on packed earth could be heard in the tunnel. Then Norhan said, “Yeah, I guess. Keep an eye out for other stuff scattered around, though, so we can come back and check once the Moon Rabbit’s been.”

Privately, Ren wondered if there was even any point to that, considering how the tunnel mouths seemed to move around, but he didn’t say so. He thought about the poem, and was just suggesting that he might use a contamination-detecting pollen he’d picked up to find ‘where fish grow old’ when the tower began to speak.

“Ding dong! Thirty minutes are up! All players please return to the starting position.”

When his foot connected with the earth, he was back outside, in the impersonal blaze of sun that felt far too hot after so much time underground. He almost lost his footing, but Ewen caught him. Or one of the Ewens did. He’d brought out his double: at Ren’s confused look, the real Ewen said, “I sent him back out here so I’d be able to find the way back, but I guess there was no point.”

“It was a good idea, though,” Ren said as the other Ewen disappeared. “Did you find the mochi?”

“We did.” Jessamy pointed at the decidedly slimy mochi in Nuran’s hand which she was looking down at in distaste. “It turned out to be the worm one, though.”

“So that’s worms down… We got the man’s skin’s lost one, and the one with pink and lace.”

“You got two?” Nuran said in mock outrage, leaning heavily on her brother’s shoulders to see. “No fair. But hey, I guess this isn’t as difficult as all that!”

“Really don’t think you should say that…” Ewen mumbled while trying to support her weight, and she messed his hair up affectionately as a punishment for speaking out against her.

The earth began to shake. They all turned to watch the Moon Rabbit hop into view. It towered over them, twirling its mallet in one paw. Blinking its deep red eyes, it cooed, “Lovely children! Have you found all of my mochi yet?”

“We’ve found three,” Norhan said, and gestured for the others to present them. The Moon Rabbit bent over its furry belly to sniff first Nuran’s outstretched hand, then Ren’s. He saw its eyes flick up to him, and for a moment felt immobilised. He could just see the glint of teeth in the rabbit’s open mouth. Then it left, and he, shaken, stood back.

“Well,” the Moon Rabbit said. “Well, well, well. My _dear_ children. I asked for all of my mochi, not three of them. Aren’t you bad children? You didn’t do as I asked. Don’t bad children deserve punishment? You’ll never learn otherwise. Now, which child will take the punishment?”

There had been a high chance something like this would happen. Ren stared up at the Moon Rabbit’s unfeeling eyes, the way it twirled its mallet, and inhaled, ready to volunteer. Before he could, Ewen stepped forwards.

“I’ll take it,” he said. Then, to the others looking at him in surprise, he said, “Nuran and Jessamy got hurt with the worms, and Ren, you’ve got red marks all over you, and I mean, I’m as good as anyone else, right?”

Nuran frowned, seemingly about to pull him back. “Ewen…”

“You, then!” the Moon Rabbit said happily. “All the other children step back, please.”

They had no choice but to do so. Stepping almost to the edge of the holes, they waited, watching the small silhouette of Ewen’s body against the lumbering white mass of fur. The rabbit let its mallet hit the ground, blowing up a little gust of sparkling white dust that dispersed into the thick air. Once, twice, it tapped the mallet against the earth, like a golfer. From the corner of his eye, Ren saw Nuran step forwards.

“Wait,” she said, and there was something wrong with her voice, “wait, just a—!”

The Moon Rabbit swung. With perfect accuracy, it slammed the mallet into the side of Ewen’s head. The mallet was solid wood, thicker than Ewen’s waist was wide. Bone was no obstacle to it. There was a nauseating crunch, a burst of red, and splattering, everywhere. Nothing remained by the time Ewen’s body collapsed to the ground. Blood spilled and pooled over the white sand, staining everything red, red, red like the shrapnel, the pieces that lay scattered, each of them a damning message, that this could not be fixed.

The Moon Rabbit tapped its mallet on the ground again — once, twice. “There we go,” it said. “Let’s do better, lovely children!”

And it left.

Blood was still spreading, but it did not flow. Something was bubbling in the air: a sound that cracked and shattered and came together into sobs, over and over. Nuran was hyperventilating. She couldn’t cry properly: it only bubbled.

Ren felt an arm around his waist, and it was only then that he realised he was shaking so badly he couldn’t have held himself up another second. But he couldn’t look up at Norhan: he couldn’t tear his eyes from the body in front of them. His vision kept blurring and clearing, and with each repetition, he knew things must be different, but they never were. Ewen did not get up again. He lay in a puddle of unmoving blood, and pieces of his own head. It shouldn’t have been like this. Tower games weren’t supposed to kill you so easily. Were they? Not like this. No one on Ren’s teams had ever died like this. This couldn’t be happening. It was such a simple mistake. He should have gone, not Ewen. They should have thought of that. They should have sent him, just in case. See? He knew how to fix it. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Just turn back time and he’d do it right. Just reset everything and he’d do it right. Why wasn’t it resetting? It always reset. Why wasn’t it changing? _Why wasn_ _’t it—_

“Everyone take a different hole.” Norhan’s steady voice cut over Nuran’s breathless, bubbling sobs, and they all looked at him. His expression was entirely closed. There was nothing there. “Ren, I’m sorry, but you’ll take the next two punishments. That gives us an hour and a half. Go.”

Gently, Ren’s body was turned so he was facing the mouth of a tunnel. He was terrified of the sight behind him: it took very little push to make him jump down into the tunnel and begin to walk. Slowly, Nuran’s crying faded out of hearing. There was only the clinging damp of the underground; only the inoffensive light from the spores as they bounced together. There was nothing else. He couldn’t think. He tried: with all his might, he tried to concentrate and make connections between the lines of the poem and the objects strewn about the mouths of tunnel branches, but he couldn’t think. Everything was a blank and a refusal to believe that what he had seen had actually happened. He only walked, without noticing anything. Even the knowledge of how sorely this was wasting Ewen’s sacrifice (no, no, it wasn’t a sacrifice, it couldn’t be _over_ ) didn’t succeed in coaxing him into a proper search. He could not.

Half an hour passed in numbness. When the tower called him back to the starting position, he barely felt anything, least of all apprehension at what would now happen to him.

The body was gone. The blood remained, but the body was gone. He didn’t have to wonder what had happened to it: there were traces of blood across Norhan’s legs and hands. No one said anything about it. Nuran was still crying, her eyes red and swollen, but she wasn’t making any sound. Jessamy was white as paper.

“I found one,” he said, his voice quiet and restrained. “I think it’s connected to the line about scythe and sickle: I found it in a pit of wheat. So that one doesn’t need to be worried about anymore.”

Norhan nodded, and managed to smile. “Thanks. So what have we got left?”

Hurriedly getting out the paper, Jessamy examined it and said, “The one about ‘deep in snow and frost’, the one that’s ‘rosy’, the one that’s ‘sweet’, the one that ‘lies in the young buck’s seat’, the one ‘drowned where fish grow old’, the one ‘stored to last the cold’, the one that ‘was frozen’, and the one that ‘resides where hearts grow cold’. Eight.”

“Okay. Okay.” Slowly, Norhan walked over to Nuran, and seemed to, slowly, extend an arm to her. She ignored it. She didn’t shake it off: she seemed merely not to see it at all. He took it back, and said, “We need to do better. That’s all we can do.”

The Moon Rabbit arrived.

“Oh _dear_ ,” it said mournfully when it saw only one mochi had been added to the pile. “That wasn’t very good of you, my sweet children. And I punished you properly and all. I see you need to be punished again, since it didn’t make it through your little heads the first time!”

Nuran choked at the word ‘heads’, but said nothing.

“Now, who’ll be punished this time?”

As agreed, Ren stepped forwards. He didn’t think about anything. He stood on the bloodstain that had been a friend, and nothing felt real: he activated his ability and stared up at Moon Rabbit, watched it tap-tap its mallet against the ground, and let it happen.

 

 

“Ren? Are you okay?”

Gasping for breath, he opened his eyes, and looked up into Norhan’s face. He nodded mutely, and received a soft smile in return.

“I’m sorry about that,” Norhan said, helping him up. “I’m sorry it’s going to happen again. Let’s just…let’s just try our best, okay? We’ll swap holes this time. Does everyone remember the ones we need to look out for?”

“I think…”

Everyone looked over at Nuran. She was crouching near the right-most hole, the sun beating down on her back. There was silvery dust in her hair, shooting grey through the brown. “I think,” she said again, her voice lifeless, “the poem’s based on the annual moons.”

This gave them all pause.

“Annual moons?”

“A harvest moon is something I’ve heard of. I’ve heard of worm moons too. I think there’s one for every month of the year. I think the poem’s based on that.”

“Can you remember any others?” Jessamy asked quietly. He handed her the poem when she held a hand out for it.

For just long enough to make them all restless, she looked at the sheet of paper. Jessamy began to shuffle his feet; when it seemed Norhan was about to say something, she spoke. “Flower moon and strawberry moon. Rosy and sweet. I can’t remember the others.”

“That’s okay,” Norhan said warmly, “that’s already told us what kind of sweetness we’re looking for.”

She nodded, and — without another word — slipped down into the tunnel. They all dispersed, Norhan squeezing Ren’s shoulder a last time before going down a tunnel himself.

This time, Ren told himself, he would try. He walked down new but familiar corridors, keeping an eye out for anything that might lead him to one of the clues related in the poem. Ducking under spores and not caring at all for how lost he was getting, he walked and walked, tangling his own path in knots. As he had said he might, before everything had broken, he got out a pouch of pollen he had won in a troll instance game and searched for contamination that might lead him to rotting fish. The pollen was supposed to blacken upon contact with anything contaminated, but did not, though he walked for a long time.

Searching for something to do with the cold, as three of the lines had mentioned that, he went deeper and deeper into the tunnels, searching for cold that would leave his skin numb. In the meantime, he darted into branches and tested rooms that seemed possible, but found nothing. The tower called him out again, and he came hands empty.

That time, they had collectively found two mochi: Norhan had found one that was almost certainly ‘deep in snow and frost’ as it had taken him ten minutes of shovelling to get it out, and Nuran had found the ‘sweet’ one. Her forearms were lacerated with cuts, and the sand her blood dripped onto hissed.

All the same, they only had half. The Moon Rabbit tutted at them, and — though initially puzzled to see Ren alive — gladly killed him with the mallet again.

As before, they set off down their separate tunnels. Immediately, Ren got out the pollen and began to run down the tunnel, searching for anything at all. There was only so much time left; he could only die so many times. So he ran, dashing this way and that as the cold crept over his skin and ushered him further down.

He found something, at the end of a very narrow tunnel. It began a normal height, but by the end of it he had to crawl, and when he could finally crawl no further, he was looking into a small, box-like window with earth walls tight all around him. Through the window, he could see a sea of brambles. They were thick, but all brown, like the earth was brown, and it was thanks to that — and thanks to the spore hovered just about it — that he could see the rose lying just a handful of metres from him. But he couldn’t get to it. He tried using Divine Retribution on the earth, but it wouldn’t give way; he tried using a supposedly enchanted knife on it next, and the knife broke. He couldn’t move forwards, and he was wasting time: with a bitter taste in his mouth, he had to scramble back through the tunnel and begin to run again, hoping for some other entrance.

Instead, he found that the pollen in his hands blackened. He barely noticed it, because he wasn’t paying attention: only by grace of a spore floating overhead did he see what had happened, and in an instant he backed up and entered the forking tunnel he had just passed by. The orange pollen grew darker the further he went in. Soon, he could smell it too: the rancid stench of rotten fish, wafting out from inside the tunnel. Putting the pollen away, he walked forwards, his heart in his mouth. That was stupid, of course, but the tunnel kept curving, and he couldn’t see what the room looked like. He couldn’t, in fact, until he made it inside.

It was as if the tunnel had thickened, that was all. It was a circular area, and on the other side was a dark, dark tunnel leading further in, without a single spore to light the way. On the ground, dead fish in various states of decay and decapitation lay abandoned. The entire space was flooded with a few centimetres of murky water.

‘One is flooded where fish grow old’, the poem had said. Ren swallowed back his disgust and began to feel through the water. There wasn’t enough light to see through it. Kicking it up offered no clarity. Steering well clear of the darker tunnel, he shuffled around, bent over at the waist, frantically searching. Eventually, he found it near one of the sides, caught between the wall and a fish encrusted with some kind of black fungus. He picked it up, revolted, and was about to put it away when he heard something from the dark corridor.

It was movement. Not much: it was a single ripple, that was all. Just one — but then there came another. Then another.

Ren’s heart had frozen in his chest. Petrified, he stared at the darkness as if it would give him answers. It gave him only sounds: another ripple, and another, and here was the unconscionable, unmistakable sound of something heavy moving towards him.

He ran. There was no other choice: the Moon Rabbit had prohibited violence, so he could only sprint back the way he’d come, but no sooner had he made it out of the water than he heard the thing hurling itself after him, a flurry of splashes and the creaking of bone. Then, as he flew down the corridor so fast he felt the reverberations in his ribcage, there came crashes onto dry land, and he knew he was being followed in earnest. Blood pounding in his ears, he begged the tower to call him back to the starting position, but he knew it wasn’t time yet. He knew that he had to outrun this creature that followed him with clattering and crunching like no animal he recognised, and then — just as he made it out of the tunnel — it let out a howl that made bile rise in his throat.

Without pausing, Ren skidded to the side and ran down the tunnel, dread snaking down through his gut when he heard the thing follow him even here. The sound of its body clashing together was so foreign that he couldn’t tell how far away it was: he only knew that he had to run, run, and run faster, and then, when the tunnel curved, he darted into another branching corridor, praying with all the faith he had that it would not think to follow.

It did. He was left in what he knew would be a dead end with a creature that left his blood cold. His hands were shaking from something that was not exhaustion. He would trip: he knew he would, he had to stop, he had to, but the clattering was so close, and then there was another howl and it felt like the creature was upon him, and his legs almost gave way in a rush of icy fear. Only years of training kept him running. He pushed further and further, reaching into his bag, and when he finally made it into the room, he whipped out Little Red Riding Hood’s Cape, threw it over himself, and went very still.

It wasn’t fool-proof. It wasn’t absolute. He couldn’t remember the exact percentage, but there was a chance that this would be seen through. He still had to try. His heart on the tip of his tongue, he stoppered all breath and stood, paralysed, against the wall.

In the dim light offered by fewer spores than usual, the creature came. He couldn’t see all of it. It appeared to have realised there was no chase now, because it had slowed to a walk: he saw long, knobbly limbs shambling lopsidedly, connected to something taller than him. The movement was uneven, unsteady, unnatural. It was as if it was injured, the way it hobbled, long shadows cast over its body so he could only just make out the shape of a long, ghostly face. There were shapes like eyes, but they were not eyes, only holes, scraped into what might have been skin. It jittered with every step, and it turned jerkily, turned this way, then that, then another, but it did not seem to see Ren. It walked onwards.

He didn’t dare breathe. His lungs were burning. He couldn’t breathe. He was shaking, and only the wall was holding him upright.

Seconds ticked by. He couldn’t remember how long the cape was effective for. He couldn’t remember how long ago he’d put it on. All he knew was that he could not attack this creature: attack it, and the Moon Rabbit would know, and kill him for it, and someone else would have to take the punishment, and die, because of his stupidity. But if he were killed by it…

He had never tried to die three times in one day before. Even if he managed to, he had to conserve all the deaths he could for the punishments.

Fear and the burning knowledge of his own pathetic situation pierced his eyes with hot tears. He had to move. The creature was a little way on now: he had to move, but no sooner had he thought that than he heard the crack of limbs, and all strength left him.

All strength, and all thought. He ran. Darkness was deceptive: he was not far enough away, and heard the howl of the creature as if directly into his ear. In a last-ditch effort, he threw the Spider’s Silk back at it, but could not bring himself to look at the rearing, rattling limbs that knocked him over, so he only heard it when the silk snapped.

That was it. He couldn’t look. There was no time to, anyway. Staring to the side, he screamed when he felt sharp somethings like a hunting trap bite into the muscles and viscera of his stomach. It was hot, red-hot, white-hot screaming, body-wide and burrowing within his every blood vessel like lava, because it was only pain, and it was more than any human could surely stand. His body was tugged this way and that, the pain spiked and dipped, and was always unbearable. The sounds he heard would have made him vomit if he’d been able — then, he could not even scream.

 

 

Everything was dark. There was enough light to know that. A spore was gently, gently brushing against his face. With trembling arms, he lifted himself up. There was blood everywhere, absolutely everywhere. There didn’t seem to be any creature, though. Ren could have cried with relief.

Lazily, the spore by him wafted further ahead, and he followed it, trying to push back the urge to be sick. He staggered forwards, sniffing heavily to plug tears he wouldn’t acknowledge, and he followed the spore, because in times like these, he could only follow instructions. As if air currents were instructions. But the spore led him into a new room, a brighter room with a great deer head speared against the opposite wall, and he thought they might have been instructions after all.

‘One lies in the young buck’s seat’.

Aware of how little time he now had left, he fell to his shaking knees before the decomposing deer head, to the bed of moss and twigs that lay before it. Feverish, he tore up the moss in both hands, blind to the spiders and centipedes that scuttled away from the overturned earth. He dug and dug, and grabbed the mud-covered mochi just as the tower called for the end of the session.

Sun poured over him.

Letting out a breath that did nothing for the tension stiff in his shoulders, he looked up, and in Norhan’s horrified expression saw how he must look, covered in dirt and moss and blood. His ability had grown back his clothes, but he had still lain in his own blood long enough for it to soak them. But the others didn’t have to know it was his. He smiled wanly.

“I got two,” he said, “and I think I saw the rose, but I couldn’t get to it.”

“Ren, are you okay?” Norhan asked as he and Jessamy helped him to his feet — but he couldn’t bring himself to answer, and by that time the quaking of the Moon Rabbit’s feet had returned, so he didn’t have to.

They were missing four.

“I’ll go,” Nuran said, when the Moon Rabbit wailed about what terrible children they were, how badly they needed punishment. “You’ve never died more than twice in a day, right, Ren? I’ll do it.”

“No, you _won_ _’t_ ,” Norhan said, grabbing her by the collar and keeping her with the others. In any other situation, it would have been funny, but there was such gravity in the lines of his face that Ren couldn’t laugh.

It was obvious Norhan wanted to say he’d go. His mouth was slightly open, ready to say so, and he was angled towards the Moon Rabbit (watching them, tap-tap-tapping its mallet on the earth), but he was hesitating. He was all the family his sister had left. Noble sacrifices were no use to vulnerable children left alive. He was hesitating.

“I’ll try again, then,” Ren said.

With an expression of deep conflict, Norhan looked down at him. “I don’t know if I can let you do that.”

“One of us has to go, right? And at least with me there’s a _chance_ I’ll come out alive.”

“You’ve never done it more than twice in—”

“I know,” he said, smiling, and he thought he managed it with more energy this time. “But I’ve heard of abilities levelling up sometimes, so maybe mine has? And we never knew its limit anyway.”

“I have heard of that,” Jessamy said guardedly. “Levelling up, I mean. Growing stronger.”

“Lovely children! Don’t take so long! Must I punish all of you?”

Nuran gave the Moon Rabbit a dirty look; Norhan didn’t take his eyes off Ren. “Are you really willing to bet your life on that?” he asked.

“Do we have another choice?”

They did, in fact, have other choices, being perfectly capable of sacrificing any of the others, but there were no better choices. This was all there was, now. This was the best they had, in this world.

Ren couldn’t tell them that this would be his fourth death in one day. It helped his case, but would make Norhan forbid him from trying again. So, feeling the gaping lack of Caïn’s comforting voice inside his head to guide him, he stepped up to the Moon Rabbit on shaking legs, and closed his eyes.

 

 

They tried to find the rose again. Nuran said she had explosive props, so they searched together in relative silence, scouring the tunnel for any trace of the branch that had narrowed towards the room full of brambles. It never came. They passed many branches and they went through many corridors, and three times they came across a branch that seemed promising, but though they searched the ensuing rooms, no mochi were found.

At the end of half an hour, they had nothing. Neither Norhan nor Jessamy had found any either.

They were still missing four.

“We can’t do this again,” Norhan said firmly, in the limited time they had before the Moon Rabbit would show up. “There’s no guarantee we’ll find any more next time. All in favour of just trying to fight it?”

What choice did they have? They would die either way. They all agreed.

When the Moon Rabbit came, it came as it always did. With a mockery of shock, it said, “Oh, my lovely children! But you haven’t found me a single mochi this time! Whatever is to be done? I shall have to punish two of you.”

Its eyes glinted. It felt cheated by Ren’s repeated revival. Of course it wanted more.

“I’ll go first,” Ren said, and this was deemed acceptable, though the Moon Rabbit seemed rather bored by the idea.

He walked in front of it. He waited for the tap-tap. He watched the mallet swing back, and he ducked as a giant wolf leapt at the Moon Rabbit, ready to tear its throat out.

Ren ran back, kicking up dust with every step, until he was a safe distance away — only then did he spin around, squinting to see through the clouds of sparkling sand that Norhan might have stained the Moon Rabbit’s white fur red, but had been knocked to the ground. The rabbit was wielding its mallet like a mace, and only Nuran’s nimbler build had saved her thus far: with a face set in determination, she split open her forearm and rained acid down onto the rabbit, and it roared, flinging her to the side so hard Ren heard the crack of bone. Before the rabbit could then round on Jessamy, Ren activated Divine Retribution: he and Norhan ran towards the Moon Rabbit as one force, ready to face the whirling mallet, until it cried out, “Oh!”

With an earth-shattering bound, it leapt ten metres away, to the top of a mound of rock, and clasped its hands together, staring down at them. They, injured and breathing heavily, looked back.

“Oh, _no_ ,” it wailed. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh _dear_ — but why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

None of them moved. None of them understood what this was.

With what sounded like genuine distress in its voice, the Moon Rabbit said, “How could you trick me like this? Cruel children! Cruel, cruel children! Do you have any idea what the moon god would have done to me if I’d killed their favourite for real? Oh, it gives me shivers to think of it!”

Slowly, the world came into focus. Like shifting tectonic plates, ideas connected and merged, and Ren felt as if his stomach had dropped into free-fall.

“I thought something was odd about that ability of yours,” the Moon Rabbit said, “but those chains! Oh, I recognise those! Oh! Oh, whatever am I going to _do?_ I can’t kill you! I’ll be torn to pieces! But you’re such bad children: I can’t leave you unpunished… I know! I’ll send you all to the tower. Then it isn’t my fault!”

Ren couldn’t process what happened next. He barely paid attention. All he knew was that he could have prevented everything. If he had only brought his chains out from the very start, he could have stopped it all.

This was his fault. All of it.

“Ding dong! The black tower’s fourth floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Welcome to the Abandoned Theatre!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard, mirenwe, fainne and jiirva, all looking down at their drinks:  
> hosgard: so, uh.  
> hosgard: you'll rip it to pieces anyway, right?  
> jiirva: oh yeah absolutely


	23. i decided to split them up; anyway this is the one where the tower goes through an rpg maker horror phase

The Abandoned Theatre was dark, but not so much so that it was impossible to see. Slithers of light fell down from somewhere high above, and were caught like dust on tall, velvety curtains. These were like a forest of seaweed gently undulating in the ocean currents, and they cut off everything. If Ren had moved, perhaps he could have pushed past the layer after layer of curtain, but he didn’t. He tried, but his hand fell down the surface of one with a soft sound, and he fell to his knees.

There was no immediate danger. Bringing his knees up to his chest, he hugged them, and buried his face into his arms.

Everything was quiet. The curtains whispered together in gentle _shh-shh_ sounds, swept by unknown breezes, but there was no other noise. Here, he had time to stop and think, and process everything that had just happened. That part wasn’t easy. His mind kept shying away from the devastating reality of it all: it couldn’t be that Ewen was now dead, because he’d been perfectly healthy just a few hours ago. This wasn’t the sort of thing that happened. It had all been so quick, and it was so easily fixed, if he was just allowed to go back in time and undo it. If he just showed the Moon Rabbit his chains. If he were just clever enough to make the connection between the Moon Rabbit and the moon god — then, everything would be fine.

He hadn’t seen many people die in front of him. Relatively-speaking, not many. And this was the first friend. The image kept replaying over and over, poisoning his bloodstream with dread each time, because each time it was over, there was a tiny, secluded second of peace, before he remembered it all over again. _This can_ _’t be happening; but it did_ — over and over and over.

Presently, he heard footsteps. He stiffened, but didn’t look up, or move. The curtains swished together, filling the air with mustiness, and the footsteps came closer. Eventually, when the curtains in front of Ren were pulled aside, they stopped. The curtain fell back, and Norhan sat down next to him. After a second, he put an arm around Ren’s shoulders.

“I can’t find the others,” he said — slightly hushed, like he could feel the weight of the curtains too. “I think it might just be us for now. They might have gone into another game, or we’ll meet up later. Or something.”

“He’s really gone, isn’t he?”

There was a pause. Norhan’s arm grew tighter around him. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“It’s my fault. If I’d just used my chains—”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have put it together!”

“Any of us could have done that. We didn’t. All of us dropped the ball, but we couldn’t have known,” Norhan said calmly, reasonably. “We did what we could. If you made a mistake, so did Ewen when he volunteered. He should have known that it could be dangerous.”

“Don’t say that about him!”

“We all should have known.” Gently, his thumb rubbed circles on the back of Ren’s neck. “We messed up, okay? We messed up, that’s all. We were too used to the troll instances, and we didn’t think. It’s no one’s fault except the Moon Rabbit’s and the tower’s.” He paused. “The tower’s got a lot of blood on its hands like that.”

It didn’t come close to a remonstration. It really wasn’t that strong, but in the words Ren heard the echo of something else — a warning that many people were dying every single day just like this, that he should get used to it, that he was spoilt for not having had to get used to it yet. These were warnings he had heard for weeks, but he hadn’t wanted to pay them any attention. In the warm nest that Kiev had been for him, he had wanted to grow in comfort and safety, surrounded by friends and instances that couldn’t really hurt them. He hadn’t wanted to remember that the world was different now.

“Ding dong!” the tower sang, its voice echoing through the rafters. “All players please make their way to the stage.”

Neither of them moved. Ren buried his face further into his arms. Tears were pricking the corners of his eyes, but he hadn’t cried yet. “I feel so stupid,” he said, his voice choked. “I know this is normal now. I know I’m supposed to get used to it—”

“You don’t have to get used to it.”

“But it keeps happening!” he protested, strangled. “I’m so…I’m so stupidly lucky that this is the first friend I’ve seen die. But I have to be prepared for it happen again. Because it will, right?”

“It might. We’ll try not to let it.”

“I feel like a kid,” he said, and the words were wretched: he hated showing such ugly emotions to other people. “I want to grieve him, but I need to accept that this just fucking _happens_ now too, so I feel like a kid for getting upset like this.”

“You’re only just not a kid, you know,” Norhan said softly, stroking his hair. “You saw a friend die. It’s okay to be upset about that. It’s normal to be upset about it.”

“But everyone else just gets _over_ it,” he cried, and hated the tears locked into the gasp that came out when he next breathed in. “Right? What else are we supposed to do? It’ll just hurt again if I let it, so I need to get used it. I mean…look at Ryhad and Cade: I know we keep trying to protect Cade from seeing stuff, but she wouldn’t care. And Ryhad definitely doesn’t. They’re both so much stronger than me.”

Norhan’s hand stopped on his back. It seemed possible now, so, blinking furiously, Ren looked up, and once his eyes were adjusted to the scant light, saw Norhan looking at him sadly.

“It’s not…strength, exactly,” he said with a small smile, likely put there only to soften the blow.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that both of them are only coping. That’s all any of us are doing. It’s not strength to cope in a less emotional way than another person. In some cases, it’s a weakness. In Cade’s especially, it is.”

Ren wasn’t sure he understood.

“You know I opened the first floor for this zone,” Norhan said, moving his hand again in absent-minded strokes down the first part of Ren’s back. “I was curious. I wanted to try it. I don’t feel bad about what I did, because someone would have done it eventually, and I’ve had a long time to reach that conclusion. But, at the start, I hated myself for it. Did I tell you that my dad disappeared with the others?” he asked, looking down at the floorboards beneath them. “I can’t remember what I said now. That didn’t happen, though. He died on the first floor, in front of Cade. The monster there was Cerberus, and Cade asked it if she could bring Dad back. Companion to the god of the dead and all that: she thought it would help her. No one else would. It told her that if she killed someone else, it’d bring Dad back for her, so she did. And it kept its word: it brought Dad back, but not for very long. By the time I made it home, he was almost totally crumbled away. It took a while to convince Cade that she couldn’t have him back anymore.

“He always…” He laughed, briefly. “He got drunk a lot, right? I don’t mean he had an alcohol problem or anything, he just liked going out with friends. But he had hangovers a lot too, and he used to always ask Cade to be a little quieter, and he’d hug her and tell her to be quiet until he felt better. She really took that to heart. I think…she didn’t tell me, but that whole time between the end of the first floor and me coming home, I think she got it into her head that if she just stayed very quiet and good, he’d get better. And now she can’t stop. It’s not strength. It’s the only thing she knows how to do, that’s all.”

Silently, Ren watched him. Norhan was still smiling at the floor, thick eyelashes shading his eyes. “I’m pretty sure there’s something similar with Ryhad,” he said, letting his hand fall from Ren’s back. “I don’t know for sure, because he hasn’t told me, but I think it’s at least partly because of you.”

“Me?”

His voice was an intrusion in the quiet, muffled space in between curtains; he wished he’d spoken quieter, but Norhan only nodded.

“I think so. Look at it this way: we both have our sisters. I need to protect mine and make sure she grows up okay, and you need to find yours. We have _something_. I don’t know if he had anything, until he met you. It didn’t sound like he was all that close with his uncle or cousin or anything. I think he’s decided he needs to protect you, so if he comes off as cold or mercenary, it’s probably because of that. I don’t really think that’s strength either. I worry that could easily trip him up at some point, but I’m not about to talk to him about it — he’d bite my head off. Don’t tell him I told you, either,” he said, looking back up to meet Ren’s eyes.

Ren wasn’t sure what to say. Now the idea had been planted inside his head, he thought that the roots had always been there; it made sense. “I won’t.”

“Good.” He breathed a laugh. “I think…what I’m trying to say is that you’re not weak, for wanting to grieve. It’s okay. We all take this in our own way, and honestly, letting it out is better than bottling it up. Yeah?”

“I guess.”

“And do you really want to close yourself off so it doesn’t hurt as much next time? Is that the kind of person you really want to be?”

“…I have to, to—”

“Do you want to?”

“…no.”

Norhan hummed in a satisfied tone. “That’s more like you. That’s our Ren.”

“I don’t feel like me,” Ren said bitterly.

“I know. But you will again, with time. It’ll be okay. Give me a smile?”

He did. It took effort, but he did, and when Norhan hugged him, he hugged back, burying his face in Norhan’s neck and breathing steadily. It wasn’t okay. It wouldn’t be okay either, not in a world like this. But they had to keep going anyway, because they couldn’t turn back time, they couldn’t bring back the dead, and they couldn’t heal the wounds the tower was leaving on them. It was useless to worry about things they couldn’t do. They just had to try.

For a few minutes, they were quiet together. Getting up and deciding to move on should have been organic, but they were robbed of this, in the end.

“Ding dong!” came the tower’s voice, lost among the curtains. “All players please proceed with the game. Any player who does not proceed will be considered to have forfeited the game.”

“Come on,” Norhan said encouragingly, getting to his feet and holding out a hand for Ren to do the same. He took it; together they stood in between the curtains, and tried to figure out where to go next.

“Did you see anything when you were walking through earlier?” Ren asked. He still had to swallow heavily to sound normal, but he was getting there.

“No. I tried transforming but even then I only smelt you. And dust, I guess. Do you think we should try going up?”

They both looked up. High, high, beyond the tops of the curtains, light was coming from somewhere. If there was a way forwards, it might as well be up.

They had no prop more convenient, so they used Divine Retribution. It wasn’t easy, because Ren didn’t often use it to carry himself, and had never pulled another person’s weight on top of that, but with a lot of straining, they managed to get to the tops of the curtains, where Norhan grabbed onto a curtain pole and hauled himself up onto the small wooden platform just under the roof; Ren was shaking from the effort of the climb, so Norhan pulled him up too, supporting him as they walked along the creaking floorboards that coughed up dust with every step, and through the connecting door.

They found themselves in something like a dressing room. The two walls were lined with little dressing tables, each topped with a wide mirror surrounded by lights and covered in a variety of ribbons and makeup containers. In each seat sat a small doll. They all looked the exact same except for slight changes in the colour of their dress. These were all shades of pink. At the far end of the room, between two racks of sparkling show clothes, sat a bare doll torso on a chair.

“Ding dong! Side branch triggered: ‘To Create A Diva’. Please complete the unfinished doll! Use the washed-up starlets to provide the new diva with two arms and two legs. But be careful! Only some roses are ready to be plucked. Instructions are as follows.

“Puce will kill all who touch her.

“Strawberry is very jealous! She can’t stand others getting attention when she doesn’t.

“Fuchsia is proud: she won’t let herself be touched if her arch-nemesis, Scarlet, is unharmed.

“Scarlet is lonely: her sisters, Cherry and Rose, can comfort her.

“Blush and Bubblegum must always be together

“Salmon is slippery and no good for charcuterie.

“Burgundy won’t ever let Rose leave her.”

The tower shut up. The two men looked at each other, over to the dolls, then back at each other.

“Okay,” Norhan said, holding out his hands and counting off on his fingers. “So we’ve got Puce, Strawberry, Fuchsia, Scarlet, Cherry, Rose, Blush, Bubblegum, Salmon and Burgundy. We can cross Puce off right away, and Salmon too, so that’s eight left to play with. If…what was it? If we use Fuchsia, we have to use Scarlet too, but if we use her, we need…both Cherry and Rose? That can’t be right.”

“Maybe it’s an either/or situation,” Ren said, leaning back against the door, reluctant to get any closer to the dolls. They hadn’t moved, but he felt sure they would at some point.

“Okay, so Fuchsia and Scarlet go together, and Scarlet has to come with either Cherry or Rose. But Burgundy needs to come with Rose. So those four? Blush and Bubblegum can stay together untouched, I guess.”

“There was Strawberry too,” Ren pointed out. The instructions were perfectly clear inside his head, and he couldn’t tell if that was because the tower had taken mercy on them, or because of his developed powers of recall. Under the light of the naked light-bulbs bordering each mirror, they looked at each other.

“So we have to have Strawberry,” Norhan said. “That’s okay. Fuchsia and Scarlet — or no, Scarlet first, because Fuchsia won’t let us touch her otherwise — then Cherry and Strawberry. I can’t see any other clues to the order, though.”

Ren couldn’t either. They both looked over at the dolls, and there was resignation in the air as they went over to the nearest and, cautiously, slid her chair out. She slumped in the chair, but did nothing that would have singled her out as anything but a doll. They did the same to the next doll, and examined the differences in the dress colours.

“Is this the trick?” Norhan wondered aloud. “Like, is the difficulty in working out who’s who? Is this an eyesight test?”

“It had better not be,” Ren said in an attempt at sounding vengeful. “Go over to— jesus _christ!_ ”

Leaping back from the chair, he stared at the doll that had just turned her head mechanically to look at him. Her glassy eyes didn’t move, and neither did her porcelain mouth, but they both clearly heard it when she said, “I’m Puce! Don’t touch me!”

“I’m Strawberry!” the next one chimed in, and so on down the line of dolls, and then up the other side. Puce, Strawberry, Fuchsia, Scarlet, Rose, Blush, Bubblegum, Salmon and Burgundy were all accounted for. Cherry was nowhere to be found, but there was the addition of Magenta, who hadn’t been in the poem. All the dolls watched the two men unblinkingly, like lights honing in on runaways, but they didn’t move.

“Okay,” Norhan said, his entire body tense. “This is really creepy.”

“Don’t be rude!” Salmon said.

“We’ll get angry!” Blush added.

“You won’t like us when we’re angry!” Rose threatened.

“I don’t like you now!” Norhan snapped back at them, and looked over at Ren. “Okay, so I think we should just try to go ahead and get Scarlet first, because we can get Fuchsia after her. Okay?”

Ren nodded, biting his lip. He couldn’t seem to focus, so he didn’t stop Norhan walking among the parallel lines of staring dolls. They didn’t laugh maniacally or anything like that: they only watched, and turned their heads with little crick-cracks that reminded him far too much of the long-limbed monster from the tunnels. Hugging his arms, he watched Norhan approach Scarlet, apologise to her, and take hold of her right arm.

“ _Don_ _’t touch me!_ ”

The mirror in front of her exploded: from behind it shot a shower of scissors, silver and shining in the light before they stabbed into Norhan’s leg. He’d leapt back, but not far enough: the stream of metal hit his right leg straight on, plunging into flesh and clattering against each other and the floor, until it was over. Swearing, he bent over to tend to the damage and Ren ran over too, the dolls’ laughter like the winding of clockwork in his ears.

“Are you okay?” he asked, helping to pull out the scissors.

There was sweat glistening on Norhan’s temple and his jaw was stiff, but he managed to smile. “Could be worse. Guess that wasn’t right.”

They didn’t have much other choice, so they had to use Norhan’s shirt for bandaging. While Ren ripped it into strips, Norhan tried to keep the bleeding down, and said, “I don’t think the order was wrong. I can’t think of what we did wrong based on the clues. Do you— _fuck_ , be gentle!”

“I can’t be gentler than this!” Ren protested, wrapping fabric around Norhan’s thigh. There was a lot of blood. “Do you think they’re lying to us?”

“What, the dolls?”

“Who else is there?”

“I guess that’s possible. They look the type.”

“Rude!” one of the dolls called out, and was followed by a chorus of the same word.

Over it, Ren said, “I’ve got a shell that can detect if I’ve been lied to in the past hour. I guess we could try that.”

While they finished wrapping Norhan’s leg up, they discussed the likelihood that anyone else had lied to Ren recently. It seemed unlikely, and Norhan swore he hadn’t. So, with blood already seeping through the scraps of shirt and Norhan looking down at it ruefully, Ren got Whisper of the Sea out and, after considering telling it about his secret death in the tunnels, told it instead that he was scared of returning to Kiev now, because nothing would be the same again, and it wouldn’t be home anymore. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d usually have said, and he felt Norhan go stiff at his words, but he said it anyway; he was too raw not to.

The shell shook a little in his hand, and told him he had been lied to in the past hour.

“That’s that, then,” he said, putting the shell away.

The dolls lied, then. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who lied, or at least the tower (the only completely trustworthy voice) hadn’t given them one. If there was a trick to the game, neither of them could see it. They moved all the chairs out without touching the dolls directly and put to one side the dolls whose colours they thought they could identify from their dresses, but there was no way of telling for sure.

“You could just use my limbs,” Ren said dispassionately, moving to one side the chair containing what they thought was probably Strawberry. “Or just let me keep trying each doll until I die and then try all over again.”

“You’ve already died four times today and Ryhad will honest to god kill me if I let you die for real, so that’s a no there.”

“Just my limbs, then. Like cut them off and replace them with the sand.”

“I don’t think I have enough sand for that,” Norhan said kindly, coming over to him and putting a hand on one shoulder. “And I think you’re really underestimating how painful that would be. Come on, Ren, let’s just try, okay?”

But they didn’t know what to do. In the end, they went for the least efficient solution possible. They came up with the yes or no questions that would give them the most information, and they asked one question each hour, using the shell afterwards to see if they’d been lied to.

It took seven hours. The dolls grew impatient with them, but after the fourth hour stopped bothering to lie altogether, apparently seeing no sport in it. The tower asked them politely to hurry up once, but didn’t say anything afterwards, so they didn’t change their tactics. They sat together, backs to the door, and waited it out, alternately talking and napping on each other. They talked about what life had been like before the towers, about things they had liked and hated, people they had known, and things they had wanted to do. The conversation ebbed and flowed, eroding away the silence in places, and drowning them in quiet once again in others. Norhan’s leg stopped bleeding at one point, but his makeshift bandages were soaked in blood, and neither of them very much wanted to touch it. At one point, Ren went to sleep on Norhan’s shoulder, and managed to kill two hours like that.

It was a terrible way to pass an instance, all the dolls told them. It wasn’t in the spirit of the thing at all. But they did pass it. Once they’d correctly identified everyone, they used Cherry’s right arm, Scarlet’s left, Strawberry’s left leg, and Fuchsia’s right, and neither of them were hurt again. The doll torso shuddered, then got up on its chair and hopped down, hobbled over to a wall, and opened an invisible door. It went through, and made it obvious that they should follow.

Ren didn’t want to leave. The dressing room was a capsule of stopped time, where he didn’t have to worry about things dying. It was only because Norhan took his hand and gently led him out that he went. Norhan was an easy man to believe in. Ren needed that right now: just a little push, a little pull, to keep him moving forwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [in a dark corridor decorated with crayon flowers]  
> hosgard: ...mirenwe...uh...  
> hosgard: sorry, but...  
> hosgard: could you go on ahead?  
> hosgard: i'm...uh...i'm sorry  
> hosgard: i don't really know what to say...  
> hosgard: ...i don't want to lie to you...  
> hosgard: but i...don't want to tell the truth, either...  
> hosgard: if you need help...  
> hosgard: i'll come running...  
> hosgard: go on...ahead...
> 
> [a mute mirenwe runs along the corridor scattered with golden petals; he manages to stop jiirva by burning their portrait. waking up in a bustling art gallery, he goes to find his friends and on the way passes a portrait of a horned man who looks somewhat familiar]  
> [haunting guitar music plays over credits]


	24. when two fuckboys fight, don't expect it to stay pretty

The doll led them through a number of narrow corridors — all dusty, all deserted, but as they walked further, they began to hear noises. The noises were eventually revealed to be a voice: a young man’s, and pleasant, but currently angry. They climbed up a rickety staircase and heard him say, “This is _unbelievable_. How long does it take to solve one small game? Is this the kind of professional attitude you can expect these days? This is what you get when you accept sub-par humans, my lovely viewers!”

There was a round of what sounded like canned laughter. Ren looked up to share a look of deep apprehension with Norhan. Norhan’s leg had started to fail him halfway through the walk so he was supporting himself on Ren’s shoulder, and in this way managed to stand a little in front of him, protectively, when they followed the doll out from behind two curtains onto a brightly-lit stage.

There were four stands in a row on the polished wood of the stage, two of which were taken. The occupants were women: one tall, with long, tightly-braided hair, mostly black clothes, and dark skin that made the other woman look, in contrast, entirely washed-out. She was greying, and very pale in a way that seemed linked to the fear written in deep, distressed lines across her face. The darker woman looked a mix between bored and fed up.

To the far end of the stage, closer to the edge, was a grand podium in shades of pink (mostly fuchsia, Ren recognised with his newfound expertise) and bedecked in a variety of rosettes and hearts and other embellishments. The same sort of decorations were hung up in a kind of bunting around the entire stage. Lounging on a chair on the podium was a young, very attractive man. Ren almost missed a step, he was so caught up in looking at him. He had impossibly long legs with thighs just rounded enough to not look spindly, made longer by high-heeled boots; he was wearing a great amount of gauze and tight-fitting leather in shades of brown and pink, and had braids even longer than the human player’s, dyed a deep pink and tied back in a ponytail. His face might have been carved out of mahogany, his cheekbones were so sharp, and he had the best pout Ren had ever seen. It was currently being used to full effect.

“ _Finally_ ,” he said, sitting up in his chair. “Some of us have a schedule to stick to, you know!”

“Ding dong! Triggered the main branch: ‘Cupid’s Game-show’. Cupid’s show has been dipping in ratings lately—”

“It hasn’t!”

“—and he’s decided to bring players in to boost them. All players please play the game-show. The rules are as follows.

“First: there are two teams, each consisting of two players. The make-up of these teams is not final, but there will always be two teams. At the end of the game, the team with the highest collective score will pass the instance. The team with the lowest collective score will be removed.

“Second: the gameplay is simple. Cupid will ask each player a multiple choice question. If the player gets the question right, the game will continue. If they get it wrong, they will face a punishment. The punishments are not necessarily fatal. There are forty questions overall. All forty questions do not necessarily have to be answered: once each remaining player has answered ten questions, the game will end

“Third: each player has a number of cards. These are: one Group Reshuffle card, two Pass cards, two Switch cards, and one Self-Destruction card. Only one card may be used per turn. Group Reshuffle cards may be used to reshuffle the groups. This cannot be done by citing the players’ names: groups can only be reshuffled by referring to the players’ relative success. Thus, ‘let the player with the highest score be in one team, and all the others in the second’ is a valid reshuffle. Pass cards pass the question to the next player. This will count as a turn, but the player who used the card will not receive any rewards that might come with that question. Switch cards switch the question for another. Self-Destruction cards cause the player to self-destruct. There is no particular advantage to be gained from these cards but feel free to use them.

“Fourth: there is a 12.5% chance that the question will offer a reward. These rewards are the only rewards that this game will supply. Please make an effort to collect all rewards.

“All players note that this game-show is live. Remember to give the audience fan-service!”

While the tower announcement played out, the little doll had led the two of them to the two stands at the far end of the stage, and, having done its duty, disappeared behind a curtain. Skin crawling with discomfort, Ren held his stand (topped with six coloured cards) and looked out over the seats in the audience. It was an enormous theatre, trimmed in magenta velour and gilded liberally, but every seat was empty. There was hushed, indistinct conversation, but no audience to make it.

“You’re that awful boy who terrorised my two most loyal viewers, aren’t you?”

Ren jerked his head up to look at Cupid. Tragically, his stand was the closest to Cupid’s podium, and he had nowhere to hide. “I…don’t think so?”

“No, you are.” Cupid was leaning closer, his perfect face scrunched up in concentration. Small feathery wings, surely not strong enough to carry him, flapped idly behind him. “You stole Grandma’s grandchildren and you ruined the Wolf Grandmother’s game.”

“I…I just played it…”

“I know: you ruined it, that’s what I said. I’ll have to punish you for them!” he said in dramatic tones, lounging again; then, he shot a dirty look at Norhan. “You too. Firstly because you’re not wearing a shirt—”

“That’s not really my fault.”

“—and secondly because you attacked the Wolf Grandmother as well. And I never forget my lovely viewers! My fans are my greatest love.” He blew a kiss to the empty theatre and there was a great amount of squealing and cooing.

From the other end of the stage, the tall woman asked, “If you have a personal vendetta against those two, could you let us go?”

“Oh, of course not! We must make this _entertaining_. Now! Name cards.”

There was a collection of creaks that set Ren’s hair on end; when they were done, each player had a glowing sign above their head with their name written in neon. The tall woman was called Sacchan, Ren saw, and the pale one Silky — she in particular looked terrified by the whole ordeal, and he couldn’t really blame her. He looked up at his own name, then down at the cards, and felt like the glaring lights of the stage were weights dragging him down.

Cupid was peering at him again. “Have you been crying? Can we get a close-up of this?”

“I haven’t been crying!” Ren objected, searching for a camera to avoid, but he couldn’t see any.

“Oh, there’s no shame in playing on the viewers’ heart-strings,” Cupid said with an unpleasant smile. “Everyone loves a cute boy with tears in his eyes. Don’t worry: I’ll give you something to really cry about soon enough, kitten.”

Ren stared at him, then shared a ‘did he really just call me that?’ look with Norhan.

“Does anyone want to do a self-introduction to promote themselves?” Cupid asked in a sing-song voice, but before anyone could answer, clapped his hands and said, “That’s a no, then! Humans are never very good at self-promotion, are they?” he asked the non-existent audience, who made understanding sounds. “They’re really only good for eating and making banana wine out of! Tell you what, my lovelies, how about you all phone in to tell my wonderful staff who you think will win, and the person who gets it right first will win a whole crate of banana wine made from the losers of the game. Can we arrange that?” He held his hand to the side of his head as if listening to an in-ear monitor that Ren couldn’t see. “We can! Call away, then, darlings! The number’s at the bottom of the screen, as always.”

He beamed and turned back to the players. “And now,” he said, his charming smile rotting into something predatory, “let’s play.”

There was a small moan from Silky. She was holding onto the stand, and Ren got the impression she wasn’t attacking the fourth floor. That wasn’t the attitude of someone who had played a lot of games. Had he ever been like that? He couldn’t tell. He was stuck between disgust at himself for looking down on her, and pity. If he’d been able, he would have liked to help her.

“My first question, then,” Cupid said, sauntering down from his podium, shuffling question cards in his hand as he walked over to Sacchan. Leaning on her stand, he said, “How lucky are you feeling, kitten?”

Sacchan gave him a look, but didn’t answer.

“Humans are so cold! You’ll warm up for me soon,” he said, and shot a wink back at the empty theatre. “They always do.”

There was canned laughter.

“So! Let’s start off with an easy one: which beloved weapon did that _terrible_ stowaway Vike Larle steal from the Ice Queen? A — spear; B — bow; C — longsword.”

Sacchan looked at him like he was crazy. There was the sound of ticking coming from somewhere, along with murmurs and mutterings from the audience. After a few seconds, she said, cautiously, “A.”

“Correct! It was the Ice Queen’s spear. Poor Ice Queen! How is she supposed to terrorise her subjects now? It’s really too bad, and all of you, my lovely viewers,” he said, turning back to the empty seats, “can tune into a tell-all interview tomorrow! But back to the game. Beginner’s luck: you’ve won a reward card! Here you go.” He put the question card down on her stand: while she picked it up and wrinkled her nose at it, he made his way to Silky, who seemed to be stiff with fear. Rousing music was playing in the background, spurring them all onto victory or something.

“Hullo, darling,” Cupid said, leaning over the stand to smile right into her face (at an angle, so a hypothetical camera could catch the shot). “Ready to answer a little question for me?”

Silky bit her lip and didn’t say anything.

“I’ll give you an easy one, alright? Just a little sugar from Cupid. Let’s see…” Looking through the cards, he picked one out and read from it. “What’s the main ingredient in banana wine? Is it A — human blood; B — additives; C — water?”

Silky looked as if she wanted to die. The orchestral background music swirled around the room, and from the murmuring audience came a burst or two of laughter. Ren couldn’t believe she didn’t know — but then, he realised, he didn’t know either. He’d never seen it made: he had no idea if blood or water was used in greater quantities. If this was an easy question, he began to worry for his own chances.

“Time’s running out, kitten,” Cupid said cheerfully.

“I, um, I pass!”

Laughter rang out among the audience’s voices, mixed with a few exasperated cries. Silky seemed to wither under them.

“Passing already? Well, if you want to.” Still leaning on her stand, Cupid turned to point the card at Norhan with a practised wink. “What about you?”

“It’s A,” Norhan said.

“Correct!” Cupid clapped his hands a little disingenuously to a _ding-ding-ding_ that interrupted the music. “We could never dilute banana wine: then it’s just banana squash, and only children drink that. Well, then.”

Ren’s stomach began to sink as Cupid walked over to him and, smiling beatifically, crossed his arms on Ren’s stand so their faces were inches apart. “Are you ready, my cute little kitten?”

“Do you think you could maybe not call me that?”

“But I’ve got a _brand_ , kitten.” He looked through his cards and, to the audience, said, “Now, I think we all have quite an idea of what our little Ren Delacroix is capable of, don’t we? So should I make this a teensy bit challenging for him?”

There were cheers. Ren’s stomach, already sunk to the pit of his gut, tried to wriggle its way further down his legs.

“Here we go. Can you tell me who’s next in line to the Sleeping King’s throne? A — the Frog Prince; B — the Mermaid Princess; C — no one.”

Music played. Ren stared into Cupid’s rosy eyes and tried to stop wishing Caïn was here with him. Caïn couldn’t be here. Ren was still capable alone. Tearing his memory apart in search of something to help, he remembered what Caïn had once told him — an offhand comment, back on the second floor: there were no working monarchies in the underground world, only monarchs.

“C,” he said, without blinking.

Cupid looked back at him, and a slight hint of ugliness crossed his face, but it was gone when he whirled around for the ‘cameras’.

“There you have it!” he announced. “We’ll have to make things even more difficult next time, won’t we? Back to dear Sacchan, then.” To the wail of trumpets, he slid back across the stage in one smooth movement, and resumed asking questions as the music went back to normal. “Who lives in the Chalk Caves? A — ogres; B — the Tooth Fairy; C — Grandma?”

“B,” Sacchan answered without hesitation.

“Correct!” Cupid said, and in the flurry of joyful music added, “We’ll have to raise your game level too, then! But my poor little Silky… I’ll give you another easy one, how about that?”

She didn’t seem able to speak. Cupid mouthed something Ren couldn’t see at the audience, pointing at her, and turned back to nod sympathetically. “This is very easy, alright? So, who is Snegurka the granddaughter of? A — the Wolf Grandmother; B — Ded Morov; C — the Wicked Grandmother. Now, Silky, you can’t use your Pass, alright? You can’t avoid two questions in a row. Be good and be cute for me, now.”

Ren frowned, and saw Norhan turn to him, frowning as well — the tower had never said that. If the tower hadn’t said it, it wasn’t a rule. Ren was about to say so, the words were on the very tip of his tongue, when Silky said, “I…I’ll use my Switch card, then.”

“ _Poor_ Silky,” Cupid said in a kindly voice. “Here’s another nice easy one, then: who currently lives in Rapunzel’s Tower? A — trolls; B — Rapunzel; C — someone else.”

The ticking was almost deafening, drowning out the music entirely. Ren could see panic sweep across Silky’s face, and, again, he wanted to call out to her, but hesitated. The danger of this game hadn’t appeared yet, and after what had happened with the Moon Rabbit, he wasn’t sure he was ready to take a risk. So he said nothing, thereby allowing her to blurt out, “B!”

“Oh dear! That’s wrong, I’m afraid, kitten,” Cupid said with no apparent sympathy. Turning to the audience, he said, “Our first punishment! What’ll it be, folks? Phone in now!”

Chirpy violin music played for a few moments, and Cupid danced in place to it, a hand to his in-ear monitor. Silky looked as if she wanted to die; the other three were tensed and ready to see what kind of punishments this game provided. After perhaps ten seconds, Cupid’s face lit up charmingly, and he said, “Spikes! Oh, we haven’t had those in so long! What good taste you all have, my lovely viewers! Can I get a close-up of this?”

Stepping back towards the side of the stage, he held a hand out to the terrified Silky. The floorboards underneath her were shaking. Holding her hands to her chest, she backed away, but the shaking followed her; she looked to Sacchan, then to Norhan, her eyes wide in a plea for help.

“Use your props. Your ability,” Norhan said, his hands in fists by his sides.

“I don’t have any,” she said, her voice a sob. “I don’t…don’t…don’t let them kill me, please… Please!”

The floorboards gave way. Both Norhan and Sacchan moved, but there had been hesitation coiled in their bodies too, and they weren’t fast enough. Silky fell through the boards, screaming, and the scream was cut off by a heavy, wet sound. Sacchan recoiled from the hole, hands to her mouth; both she and Norhan looked away quickly. Norhan’s profile was hard as if to protect against something repressed inside him, and his eyes were wild. They didn’t calm down until he breathed out and blinked rapidly, staring out over the seats.

“What a shame,” Cupid said, peering down into the hole as the floorboards grew back. “That’s what you get, you see, if you don’t attack the tower regularly. You get soft, and spikes just love soft things. Oh well! On we go.”

Norhan had to use a Switch card on his next question, switching from one about dragons to something about the economy of the Underground Desert, which he miraculously got right. Cupid took delight in giving Ren another hard one next: he, having no idea what the Clockwork City’s main source of power was, guessed (to an obvious burst of panic from Norhan), but got it right, and earned a reward card to boot. Cupid didn’t like that much, but Ren had never been about to make friends here anyway. Turning over the reward card (currently blank), he watched Cupid move like a mouse watches a cat, wondering when it might strike. He had to conserve his cards, he knew, but he didn’t know when to take risks and when to play it safe. The Group Reshuffle cards, too — he didn’t know about those. What was the point of them? He’d played out different scenarios in his head, but couldn’t see how they could be useful with such a small group of people. If there were ten or more players, a player might reshuffle the groups at the end to make sure the lowest-scoring player was in a team alone or something, to minimise damages. With three people, where was the point? It was just cruel. As it stood, he and Norhan would necessarily beat Sacchan, through sheer force of numbers.

…but actually, had the tower ever said he was with Norhan?

Before he could think about that further, Cupid was back with him. The other two had answered their questions, though Sacchan’s had looked like a pretty close thing (Cupid and the audience had all had a good laugh at her expense). Now he was standing in front of Ren again, smiling.

“I’ll offer you something good, kitten,” he said, hanging off Ren’s stand in a manner that would have been seductive if Ren didn’t get the feeling he was being sized up to be eaten. “If you get this one without using your cards, I’ll get my staff to send along something to cover up that brute of a puppy next to you. It must be so difficult to concentrate.”

“What, feeling jealous?” Norhan asked acidly, to a few titters from the audience that quickly rose to laughter when Cupid shot him a perfect smirk and said, “About as jealous as I am of any other dog. So, Ren?”

“I don’t…really care…” he said truthfully. It seemed farcical to care about covering up in a situation like this. They could die if they got questions wrong. And anyway, he didn’t _mind_ the view.

“Let’s go, then! How tall is Grandma? A — two metres; B — two hundred and two centimetres; C — two hundred and four centimetres.”

Ren stared. They all stared.

“What’s wrong?” Cupid asked smoothly, his voice like the silk pouring in ruffles down his chest. “I’ve been so kind with this one, haven’t I, everyone? I could have asked for it down to the millimetre. And everyone knows her height: she does like to talk about it. That guy knows what I’m talking about!”

There was warm laughter from the audience as Cupid pointed somewhere among the seats; back on the stage, Ren stared down at his hands while music played around him. He had no earthly idea. He shared a look with Norhan, who shook his head and nodded at the cards on Ren’s stand.

It seemed the best idea: Ren leaned forwards, trying to catch Sacchan’s eye and holding up both a Pass and a Switch card. It took her a moment to realise his meaning. After such a look at him that a lesser man might have quailed, her eyes widened in comprehension, and she pointed at the Switch card; clearly she didn’t know either. Ren nodded, and said, “I’m going to Switch.”

“Switch?” Cupid had had enough of playing with his audience: he turned, his braids swirling around him, and smiled with perfectly-shaped lips. “You can’t play your cards, remember?”

“What?”

“You said you didn’t care. So you can’t play your cards this round, and if you win, we’ll find a shirt somewhere or other. Isn’t that fun?”

Ice seeped into Ren’s veins. “I…”

“What’s your answer?”

He had to choose. “B,” he said at random, and winced when Cupid’s smile grew wider.

“Too bad! As everybody knows, she’s a nice round two metres! All my lovely viewers, vote for his punishment!”

The next ten seconds were a nightmare. He got Divine Retribution out and couldn’t do much else.

“You’ll do better,” Norhan said, smiling for him. “You’re a good player: you’ll be fine.”

And he thought so too, but the knowledge that his usual safety net might catch him and yet might also not, leaving him to die, chilled him. He swallowed dryly, and jumped when Cupid turned back, clearly just repressing a scowl, to say, “Dolls. My lovely viewers have decided it’s to be dolls!”

And, from above, a swarm of dolls fell on him in a blur of pink. They scratched and clawed and bit, but they weren’t particularly resistant to chains shooting right through their porcelain heads, and once Ren had got over his initial terror, it didn’t take him too long to get them all off him. He was bleeding in several places, but had seen worse. Breathing heavily, he looked up at Norhan, who helped him straighten himself up while Cupid pouted.

“Well,” he said coldly. “I suppose that’s that. On we go.”

Sacchan got the next question wrong. She didn’t seem to be expecting it: shock flooded her face when Cupid told her, and it only hardened into resolve when she heard that her punishment was to be ropes. By prop or ability, she managed to burn them before they tightened too far around her neck and wrists, but they left her winded and a little singed. Norhan got a question about Happy Seaside Town which he passed onto Ren, and Ren managed to answer it correctly. Then came Sacchan, who evidently guessed her way through her question, earning herself another reward card, and Norhan knew his next. Clearly bored and out of fun quips for the audience, Cupid lounged over Ren’s stand and began to make small talk with no one in particular.

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” he said idly. “We don’t show our lovely viewers enough appreciation. I think we should bring viewers onto the show. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

There were roars of applause, which seemed to perk him up.

“I knew you would! How about this: when the next punishment comes up, there can be a little auction to see who gets to come and fight the player who lost that round. All proceeds will go to the Sleeping King’s treasury, of course!”

More roars.

“And I think I know a certain wolfy someone who’ll want to get her hands on you two,” he said with a wink at Ren and Norhan. “Right! Let’s go, then!”

The music picked up in earnest. Cupid did a few expert dance moves to it, and flamboyantly held a hand out to Ren, who blanched. “Can you tell me which port the Pirate Empress has never stopped off at? A — Barnacle Bay; B — Happy Seaside Town; C — the Frog Prince’s Vineyards.”

Ren had no idea. He was about to play a Switch card, since Cupid couldn’t prohibit him from doing so this time, when Norhan said, “It’s C.”

Everyone looked at him. After a small pause, Ren said, “Uh…C.”

“Correct,” Cupid said condescendingly. “But I’m afraid you can’t do that! You’ll just have to be punished after all. I wonder who’ll like to fight you… My lovely viewers—”

“Sorry, was it against the rules?” With a hint of edge to his voice, Norhan interrupted before Cupid had managed to twirl around to face the audience again. His ears were raised high and straight above his head. “I don’t remember the tower saying that.”

Cupid met his gaze, and held it.

“Ding dong! Players are not allowed to communicate answers to other players when it is not their turn, effective as of the next question.”

“It is now,” Cupid said smugly.

Tail flicking from side to side, Norhan asked, “Is it against the rules to call the host a little bitch?”

“…it’s—”

“Bitch.”

There was laughter from the audience. Cupid clearly hated it: his eyes began to glow and the lines of his mouth twisted into something dangerous, but all he said was, “Kitten, you’re not cute.”

“I think I’m cute.”

More laughter. Bristling, Cupid turned away and said, “Well, wouldn’t it be marvellous if everyone who thought they were cute actually was cute? Unfortunately, the only one who’s actually cute is me. Shall we get on?”

Ren was scared. He wouldn’t have admitted it if anyone had asked him, but he was. At some point, his heart had started to race, and he was restless, shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to get a hold over himself again. They were halfway through the game and had collected three out of five reward cards, but it was unlikely they’d be able to make it through another punishment. If monsters were allowed to come in to beat them up, they stood no chance. Four people working together hadn’t been enough to best the Wolf Grandmother: how was one of them supposed to do it?

But that wasn’t the worst part. Dully, he watched the other two take their turns, and used a Switch card on his to get a question that was, thankfully, about the Sleeping King’s knights and the volume at which they spoke. Still having vivid memories of how his ears had rung after they’d talked to him on the first floor, he answered correctly, and watched Cupid’s lip curl. But that was the problem. They were thriving. They were surviving. That wasn’t right.

The game was easy: the second you caught yourself thinking like that, you’d already lost. But he couldn’t see the trick. There were too many loose ends. Why wasn’t Cupid angrier that they were doing fine? Why was Cupid allowed to change the rules halfway through? What were the teams about, and what was the point of the Self-Destruction card? Was that really just a red herring?

He didn’t know. He wanted Caïn very badly.

The next round passed without incident but with stress. On her eighth turn, Sacchan had to use a card for the first time. She didn’t seem very happy about it, but when Norhan gestured for her to send it his way, she used a Pass card and he successfully identified the key of Kirby’s theme music, for a reward card.

“You really have to stop doing this, you know,” Cupid drawled. “Being friends is very nice and all that, but sometimes you need to look out for number one, don’t you think? I’m amazed you’ve come this far without realising that. It’s just fascinating to me that you’re still alive with an IQ that low.”

“Better a low IQ than low ratings, though, right?”

There was laughter, which Cupid didn’t seem to appreciate. Smiling graciously, he said, “You’re so right! I’ll make sure to air your death live so those pesky ratings get a little boost. Isn’t he considerate? Let’s give him a hand, my lovely viewers!”

Polite applause came, and grew louder when Norhan gave a bow with the air of someone accepting an award. He acted the part, but there was something calculating in his eyes, and Ren was snagged by the sight, and the relief it brought him. Something was bubbling: he only had to wait for it to boil.

“I think we really have been skimping on fan-service,” Norhan said, apropos of nothing in particular. Cupid, who had been about to move on, looked back at him with an adorable moue of confusion.

“Are you criticising the way I treat my fans? Come back to me when you look half as good as this,” he said, gesturing to himself.

“Oh, no, no,” Norhan said amid little _ooh_ s. “Just that I think we players have been skimping a bit. Can’t leave you to carry the whole show, right? Let’s make things dramatic.”

And, spinning around to face Ren, he got on one knee, held his hands out, and declared, “Now’s as good a time as any. We might die at any moment, so I need you to know I love you!”

Deathly silence fell over the theatre. Even the music stopped playing.

It wasn’t genuine. There wasn’t a single doubt in Ren’s mind about that, so why had he said it? Why had he done this? Desperately, Ren’s brain scrambled to make some kind of sense of what was going on, and it latched onto one small detail: the tower had told them to give the audience fan-service. One detail split into two: the audience reacted to Norhan — positively, too. The details multiplied: Cupid was obsessed with keeping the audience hooked; Silky had received a much more final punishment than he and Sacchan had, and the audience had chosen that; the points system didn’t make sense if you assumed that one question answered correctly equalled one point so what if that wasn’t the points system? What if their success was tracked by some other measure?

He wasn’t totally sure, but he knew that no matter what, the questions didn’t seem to matter, while the audience’s opinion of them very much did. If he wanted to raise it, he had to give them fan-service.

And anyway, he trusted Norhan.

The problem was that he now didn’t know how to respond. A few seconds of shocked silence had scraped by: now, gaping a little, Ren thought back to years of half-paying attention to the soap operas his mother liked, and said, “I… But, I, um, I’m…I’m married.”

The audience gasped and the music returned, but tense and stiff; with them came a sly, satisfied sparkle to Norhan’s eyes. In the same theatrical voice as before (but with added pain), he said, “Who could you possibly be married to that’s more important than me?”

How was he supposed to know?! He wasn’t good at thinking on his feet! Floundering, he blurted out, “Ryhad!”

“I can make you so much happier than he could! Just give me a chance!”

The music swelled and the audience liked it. They liked it far more than Cupid did: he was watching them with an ugly expression that was growing progressively uglier, so Ren stopped looking at him, and instead tried to find a response to the way Norhan had now caught his hands (to another audience gasp) and was trying to kiss them. Stifling laughter, Ren said, “But marriage is marriage!”

“And love is love!”

“But you’re…you’re the heir to your father’s estate, and I’m just a normal guy! And your secretary won’t let me!” Ren objected, pointing at Sacchan, who stared at him for an admirably short period of time before she realised what was going on.

“It’s true,” she said in a suitably cold voice. “This isn’t responsible of you at all. You need to lead the company: how can you do that when you’re chasing after your latest toy?”

“He’s not a toy!” Norhan cried, mock-wounded.

“I’m only looking out for you,” Sacchan insisted. “You can’t fall in love with a married man.”

“But you never said you were married before!” Norhan said, complicating matters even further, and the audience lapped it up. They seemed to be very biddable: there was even a cheer when he flung a hand out dramatically and said, “Why did you never tell me you were married? Didn’t you just want to pretend you weren’t married at all, so you could live with me happily?”

“N-no, I—”

“Then were you playing with me?”

“I had amnesia!”

Norhan and Sacchan both gave pretend reactions. Cupid, still in a state of murderous disbelief, said, “What the fuck is going on.”

“You had amnesia…”

“That must have been so hard,” Sacchan said kindly.

“It…it really was! But I’ve remembered now: I’ve remembered everything, so…so I…” Remembering a prop he’d got months ago and never thought he’d use, he quickly brought out a vial and applied the liquid under his eyes. Within an instant, he began to cry uncontrollably. Trying to play it up, he held his hands to his face and said, “I have to go back to my…my old life now…”

“But do you _want_ to?” Norhan asked, every inch a love-struck man who still hoped. “We could run away together: you could forget about him!”

“But…but I…”

“Don’t you love me too?”

It was all very melodramatic. Mournful strings had been added to the background music. The crying prop had really helped, because Ren thought he’d be laughing otherwise: it was just all so absurd to be doing this in a game where their lives were quite literally at stake. But the audience loved it: they were responsive to every line, no matter how stale and clichéd, and that was what mattered. Ren was just having his hands kissed again shamelessly, and was trying to think of the most crowd-pleasing way to reply, when Cupid stepped in.

“This is ridiculous,” he said icily. “We’re going back to the game. You can’t seriously think anyone actually believes thi—”

There was a boo. It was followed by further boos. Shock drew Cupid’s pretty face tight and he turned around, but apparently couldn’t think of how to fix the PR nightmare he’d just unleashed.

“It’s alright,” Sacchan said meaningfully, ignoring that interruption. “Your husband isn’t here. You can say what you really feel.”

“I…” Ren said, his eyes still crying wonderfully. He hoped they shined when he tossed his hair out of his face to look up into Norhan’s. “I just wanted to be with you, all this time. I don’t want to be responsible if it means I can’t be with you!”

“So you love me too?”

“Yes!”

The audience lapped it up. Ren couldn’t believe this was really happening.

“Are you done now?” Cupid asked scathingly.

“Is love ever done?” Norhan asked in an expertly pointless remark that was spoken while looking right into Ren’s still-watering eyes.

“Can we _please_ get back to the game?”

There weren’t any boos this time: presumably, now they’d had their conclusion, the audience cared less. So Norhan moved back to his own stand without letting go of Ren’s hand, for show, and that was that.

Ren was caught in a daze. He had no idea how any of the past five minutes had actually happened, but they had, and it seemed impossible to go back to the game now. But Cupid came to him anyway, a look of pure loathing on his face. It turned into a smirk.

“Those tears are fake, you know,” he said with a shrug back at the empty theatre. “You see what amateurs have to stoop to.”

“He has a tear duct deficiency!” Sacchan protested gamely while Norhan warned Cupid not to try anything to his ‘kitten’. Ren really hoped he hadn’t picked up that pet name with the intention of keeping it, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to bear hearing it outside the field of total unreality that was this game.

He got through his next question somehow. He couldn’t really think, but he guessed well, and Sacchan managed hers too. They were harder, though. Ren didn’t have a clue what Fairy Yeast was, let alone where it came from: he didn’t know how she’d managed to answer correctly.

With an expression of utmost vengeance, Cupid sauntered over to Norhan next. “Alright, lover-boy, riddle me this one. Which of the following leader boards is accurate as of right now?”

Three leader boards appeared as if dropped from the upper levels of the stage on strings and held there. They each contained ten player names with data about each player’s zone, highest floor, and—

“Attractiveness?” Norhan said, squinting at them. “Why are you ranking us on attractiveness?”

“All subjective rankings are from polls which our darling viewers have been voting in hourly,” Cupid said in a contented voice. “If you don’t like it—”

“Look at this!” Norhan said, pointing at the leader boards and looking at Ren. “I’m ranked hotter than Ryhad in every one! Why would you even think of choosing him?”

“I think the underground monsters might just have a thing for muscles,” Ren said, unsure of how to balance this game they were still playing and his general loyalty to his friends.

“Ren’s ranked higher than both of you in all cases too,” Sacchan added helpfully. “Have you ever considered that maybe he’s just out of both your leagues?”

Norhan made a shocked face to laughter from the audience.

“I don’t care about leagues,” Ren said graciously, and this was received well.

Cupid yawned. “You do have to answer the question, you know. If you love him so much, surely you know where he stands in the power rankings?”

The audience seemed to consider this a fair and challenging point, so Norhan had no choice but to bow to it. After a few moments of deliberation, he used a prop: shaking the little seed pod, he listened to it, and answered correctly. That reminded Ren that he did, in fact, have a prop he could have been using all this time and yet had been ignoring like an idiot. Caïn had been right about needing to take inventory regularly: he’d forgotten most of the things he was carrying.

Getting out the Happy Blue Feather he’d got from the Blue Bird of Happiness, he quickly checked the instructions, and (grimacing) ate it for an hour or so of increased luck, because he had no hope he’d know the question.

He didn’t. It was asked maliciously: “How many players are currently playing? A — 199.76 million; B — 193.25 million; C — 191.44 million.”

He answered B, and it was correct. Cupid didn’t look as upset about it as he might have. Ren watched him walk back to Sacchan, and tried to think. It felt like the play-acting they’d done had been on the right track, but he didn’t know how to round it all off. What did they have left to do? Surely something. Because at this rate, he, as the last player, was going to have to use the Group Reshuffle card to make sure he and Norhan got out safely — but then again, how would he know how to refer to the two of them? He didn’t have any idea who had the highest score. If it really was based on the questions, then he could work it out, but if it was audience opinion, while he suspected that Sacchan was lower than them, how could he be sure?

And anyway, he didn’t want to condemn her to death. He didn’t want that at all.

Once again, he began to worry. The worrying grew worse when Sacchan seemed to hesitate quite badly at her next question. She hesitated, in fact, until Norhan said, “Get it wrong.”

She looked at him: apparently they both understood what he was on about, which was more than could be said for Ren, because she said, “What guarantee do I—”

“We’ll follow through.”

So she got it wrong. Apparently she knew enough about the Dormouse’s sleeping habits to do that. With guarded delight, Cupid asked all his darling viewers (he seemed to have switched over from ‘lovely’ to ‘darling’ as if to sweet-talk them back to his side) to join in the auction to be the one to kill her. In all, the voting took about fifteen seconds. Then he grinned and said, “Sounds like someone has a grudge against you. Here’s the Swan Princess.”

Sacchan’s expression immediately turned grave and she braced herself against the giant, clawed swan that came flapping down from the rafters in a rage. Before Ren knew what was going on, Norhan had taken his hand and was dragging him across the stage to join in.

“Players have to face the punishments alone!” Cupid yelled at them.

“You can’t ask us not to defend a friend!” Norhan shouted back righteously. “We’ll fight for the love and friendship we’ve found in this game!”

This was met by some applause from the audience, which was presumably the point. Ren wasn’t thinking about it: he tied the Swan Princess down and, because he still had it on hand, tossed the vial of tear-inducing liquid at her so she couldn’t see through all the crying, and the other two finished her off. It could have been a lot worse, and indeed might have been if Sacchan had been the victim of a more powerful monster’s ire. Ren didn’t want to think about what might happen if he or Norhan really did get a question wrong. Breathing heavily, and lightly covered in feathers, he walked back to his stand while the hissing Swan Princess limped away, and they all faced Cupid.

He looked stern, but serene. He asked Norhan a question; Norhan used his prop again, and got it right. Cupid was about to move along for the very last question of the game when Norhan said, “Can I just ask something?”

Cupid’s expression turned benevolent. “By all means, kitten.”

“So I’m a kitten again? No, don’t answer that, never mind. What I want to know is, can I play cards when it isn’t my turn? If I wanted to Self-Destruct for dramatic effect, for example?”

“You could do that,” Cupid said sweetly.

“Neat, thanks.”

Cupid gave him a funny look, but didn’t seem to see anything to complain about. Turning around with a great twirling of gauze, he said, “And now it’s the last question! Isn’t it sad to part, everyone? But we can at least comfort ourselves with the knowledge that whoever loses will be made into delicious banana wine for all my darling viewers! So.” He turned a toothy smile on Ren. “Last question. When will the Sleeping King wake up? A — when he’s good and ready; B — when the time is right; C — never.”

Ren wasn’t entirely sure he knew, so rather than risk it, he turned over a Pass card. “I pass,” he said, and tried not to feel bad when Cupid rolled his eyes.

“Well, that was a tremendously boring end to a boring game!” he said, moving back to his podium. “And of course dear Sacchan doesn’t have to answer anymore because she’s already answered ten questions: don’t think you’ve outsmarted me. I’ll make do with the loser’s death. I’m stoic like that,” he said with a wink at the audience before turning back to Norhan. “Did you want to self-destruct after all, or shall we close up shop?”

“Let’s go just a little longer,” Norhan said with a pleasant smile. “I want to play my Group Reshuffle card.”

“Do you? Go on, then.”

Norhan turned it over, and lifting his head high, said, “Out of the four people in this room, I want the one with the lowest score to be in a group by himself. All the others should be in the other group.”

Everything was quiet. A number of emotions passed over Cupid’s face, eventually ending in contempt.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “I’m not a pla—”

“Ding dong! The groups have been reshuffled.”

Cupid went ashen. “You can’t do that,” he said again, getting up, his wings flapping agitatedly. “You can’t _do_ that: that’s not how this works! My ratings are higher than yours, anyway!”

“Then why are you scared?”

“Ding dong!” the tower chimed over whatever Cupid had been about to reply. “Cupid’s game-show has come to a close! According to the rules of the game, the team with the lowest collective score will be removed. As such, at 12:09 on February 22nd, 2018, the Europe District 44 official player Ren Delacroix and stowaway Norhan Eppalai, and the Europe District 265 official player Sacchan de Sancta have successfully cleared the black tower’s fourth floor (hard mode). Four out of five reward cards have been collected: Sacchan de Sancta has received Risqué Roses and Diamonds Are Forever. Ren Delacroix has received Cupid’s Omniscient Lipstick. Norhan Eppalai has received Sugar Rush. Norhan Eppalai has also received the hidden reward Understanding Between Lovers.”

Everything began to go white. The last Ren saw of the instance was Cupid’s face twisting in rage, and then there wasn’t even that anymore. He was standing on the cobbles of Kiev under the black tower, and he could feel his pocket was heavy with a new prop, but he didn’t care about that right now: looking up at Norhan, he said, “Hard mode?!”

“We ruined that guy’s entire life, of course we got hard mode. Did you miss the part where it said it’s February 22nd?” Norhan said, taking Ren’s hand and beginning to run. “We went in on the 6th! We’ve been gone over a fortnight!”

That was, indeed, the longest game Ren had ever heard of. He supposed that, given how they’d done an instance game as well as a tower floor, and had taken seven in-game hours to do part of it, it was only to be expected.

By them. It was expected by them. Not by anyone else.

They ran into the others halfway between the tower and the base. They must have heard the hard mode announcement and set out immediately. Ren had heard them coming by the sound of footsteps on stone, but at first they were separated by a city block and couldn’t see each other: for some moments it was all anticipation, all the desperate need in his chest for them all to be together again, beating in time to his racing heart. It had only been two games: it shouldn’t have been possible to miss anyone in that time, but after more deaths than he wanted to remember, after stress and fear and hysteria and the sinking feeling that none of this was ever going to change, he wanted to go back home. Right now, the best home he had were these people. When they sprinted round the corner of a block of tall, empty buildings to see Ryhad and Cade running towards them with Caïn at their heels, he didn’t think: letting Norhan’s hand go so he could run to his sister, he leapt at Ryhad and hugged him, melting into the warmth and the brush of Caïn’s fur around his ankles.

“You were gone for so _long_ ,” Ryhad said breathlessly while Cade no doubt said the same sort of thing in rapid, cracking Greek.

“It took us a while to get through hard mode.” Ren’s voice was as contented as he felt: he was being hugged, he wasn’t in any immediate danger, and for this brief moment that all five of them held tightly together, everything was fine. “Sorry for making you wait.”

“Just don’t do it again.”

There were whole spools of pain sewn into those words: the days of waiting, of not knowing, of fearing the worst, of feeling the weight that came with being the adult and having to explain to a child that her last remaining family wasn’t coming back. All of it unravelled here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hosgard, wistfully: my husband was gone for so long........i missed him  
> fainne, handing out and taking cash from the others: can you stop being mushy for a sec? you still need to pay up on your bets from the fuckboy catfight
> 
>  
> 
> [after this, fainne disappeared with the winnings and was not seen again]


	25. country roooooooooads take me hoooooooome [hosgard begins to sing] to the aaaaaaaaaaarms of my wiiiiiiiiiife

A fortnight was a long time. Many things had changed.

On the bright side, Kiev was more populated now. Even just in walking back to the base, Ren caught glimpses of other players, of signs of inhabitation. These were heartening, in a way. The city had felt a little lonely when it had just been their group.

On the other side, Jessamy had died. On the 15th, Nuran had come back hardened and unwilling to talk about what had happened on her fourth floor. By that point, Ryhad had already cleared his: he was there to see her return alone, and to feel that dread, until she explained that she hadn’t lost everyone, only two, to her knowledge. Jessamy’s death had been quick, she said: it was all she would tell Rïsel when he asked, which probably meant it was better to stop asking. There had, of course, been no hope for Ewen. Then had begun another week of wretched waiting, that had eventually paid off.

The town house was quieter than before. Ren took his shoes off at the door with the others and padded around in socks with Caïn tight in his arms, and there was a layer of hush like cotton wool over every room. Norhan said he wanted some time alone with his sister, who had refused to let go of him the entire walk back, so Ren and Ryhad walked up to Alderian’s office alone. They knocked, and were allowed in.

The room was messier than Ren could remember it being before. Paper lay everywhere, and he took care not to step on anything. The skylight was open and wind blew the sheets around every so often; there were open books and lists on every surface, most of which Ren couldn’t read. He went to Alderian’s desk and sat down when gestured to do so; still hugging Caïn to him, he looked up to see a tired smile.

He couldn’t speak English, of course: that was what Ryhad was there for. Ryhad couldn’t speak it as well as all that either, but enough to get meaning across, and he acted as interpreter while Ren explained what had happened. Alderian already knew all about the Moon Rabbit instance, of course: apparently Marisa had eventually coaxed the full story out of Nuran. She would have been here to save Ryhad the trouble of interpreting, Alderian said apologetically, but she preferred not to leave Nuran alone.

So Ren explained the fourth floor. He said all he could remember of the way the tower had acted, of the dolls and of Cupid, omitting anything too embarrassing. He explained how Norhan had secured them hard mode by deciding to condemn Cupid as well as win, and he briefly talked about Sacchan, just to be thorough. All the while, he played with Caïn’s paws, and that helped. It wasn’t so much that he still felt weighed down by everything that had happened — Cupid’s game-show really had involved enough hysteria to break him out of that, and grouping together again had gone some way to healing his hurts — but the entire house felt muffled by loss, and he didn’t want to be loud. He felt, in fact, very small. Concentrating on Caïn’s equally small paws was a good distraction while Ryhad worked his way through phrasing.

Alderian thanked him, when he was done, and asked if he thought he’d be staying.

It hadn’t gone unnoticed by Ren that everyone seemed to see him as the leader of the group. He couldn’t really understand why (even if he was the only one whose goal involved moving around, the others still had free will), but since he was the one being asked, and since Ryhad didn’t seem about to give any input, he looked down at Caïn and said no, he didn’t think he’d be staying much longer. He’d spent a long time in Kiev. It was about time to get back on the road to find his sister.

This was accepted with good grace and a smile, and they all knew what Ren really meant. It was hidden just under the surface of his words, as fatigue hid under the surface of every one of Alderian’s smiles: it wasn’t comfortable here anymore. It wasn’t gutted and it wasn’t hopeless and it wasn’t over, but it wasn’t the same, either. Ren hoped Alderian didn’t resent him for it. He was about to try and leave tactfully when Alderian motioned for him to stay a little longer.

There was, he said, something he wanted to talk about, if Ren was planning on going further east. It was something he’d talked about with Jessamy, apparently, because word was beginning to spread. There was a powerful Russian group thought to be based in Moscow that he wanted them to look out for: little was known about them because it was believed they deliberately avoided clearing tower floors early, so they couldn’t be tracked. According to the latest information from one of his Polish contacts, there should only have been three or four of them, but nobody could work out what their game was. It seemed they were collecting information too, but they staunchly refused to involve themselves with anyone.

Ren’s comment that they might just be anti-social garnered a laugh, and Alderian said he hoped that was the case. Either way, he wished them luck in finding Vike, and asked them to be wary of the Russian group if they ever did run into them: there was no solid proof that they would take down other high-level players, but many similar groups did.

It wasn’t the most encouraging thing to be told just before setting off, but Ren supposed he’d take it.

The plan was to leave the next day. It wasn’t something they really discussed: Ren just asked if that would work, and no one objected. Cade still wouldn’t let her brother put her down, so he too went to see Alderian with her, to explain his own thought process behind the Cupid game solution; in this time, Ren went to find Nuran. She looked okay. Not great, but okay. Through Marisa, she told him she was glad he was alive, and that she’d race him to the fifth floor.

When he left her room, Marisa caught him up and stopped him. They were in one of the many corridors of the house, weak sunlight slipping in through doors left ajar, leaving them in shadow otherwise. It was very quiet, and Ren felt it like a chokehold.

“I couldn’t really say it in front of her,” Marisa said, letting his hand go. “I thought I ought to tell you, though. Don’t worry about her or us, okay? You look like the type who would.”

“I don’t.”

“You do!” she insisted, smiling fondly. “You do. But it’s going to be okay, really. This is just what the world’s like now, so we’ll cope, and you’ll cope, and you can’t let it get you down, okay?” She came closer, close enough to pat his cheek. It looked like she thought about saying something else, but ultimately didn’t.

In the space she left, Ren nodded. “I’ll try.”

“There you go. You can’t let things like this trip you up. We’ve just got to keep going.”

She left then, to go back to the brightly-lit room she’d left Nuran in, and Ren watched the door close.

‘ _That was very sensible advice._ ’

‘ _You know, I had a feeling you_ _’d say something like that._ ’

‘ _Well, it was. I think you did very well, you know,_ ’ Caïn said kindly, nestled in Ren’s arms. ‘ _The Moon Rabbit is a horrible piece of work. I wouldn_ _’t have wished it on you in a million years, and it was rotten luck that you ran into it._ ’

‘ _You know it?_ ’

‘ _We_ _’ve met. Cupid is an easier kettle of worms—_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t really think that’s how the saying goes,_ ’ Ren pointed out, going back down the stairs to the room he’d staked out as his for the past few weeks. ‘ _He was easier, though, yeah, but I don_ _’t know if I’d have managed to clear that floor without Norhan._ ’

‘ _Then be grateful Norhan was there with you. That_ _’s luck playing in your favour, that’s all. It’s not a weakness._ ’

‘ _A lack of strength, though?_ ’

‘ _It might be that, yes,_ ’ Caïn conceded. ‘ _But I wouldn_ _’t dwell on it, you know. You managed it, and that’s the important thing. It sounds like you would have cleared normal mode on your own, at least._ ’ He snuffled in Ren’s arms a little, and then added, ‘ _I understand that you_ _’re probably feeling quite down about it all right now, but—_ ’

‘ _But try to go on anyway? I know that. I_ _’m fine, really!_ ’

‘ _As long as you know. And you know I_ _’ll do my best to not leave you alone again,_ ’ he said, not for the first time. ‘ _I_ _’m sorry about that._ ’

‘ _Not your fault,_ ’ Ren told him, lifting him up to look into his pitch black eyes before finally putting him down onto the mosaic-tiled floor. They headed into Ren’s room, and he began to pack the few things he kept with him. He’d picked up a lot of new clothes and a whole new stock of chewable toothbrushes, and now had to figure out how to fit all of them into a bag.

 

 

They left early the next morning. Ryhad had scouted out a car with enough petrol in it to make it worth stealing. It wasn’t at all like the holidays Ren had used to take with his parents, before all of this had happened: there was no piling in of suitcases and bags of walking boots and food packs — it was just them, one bag each, and some extra towels and chewable toothbrushes because Ren had standards and expected everyone to live up to them. There were goodbyes, but everyone knew better than to make them sentimental. The closest they got was when Kiyran, every part the paternal uncle, patted Ren’s shoulder quite firmly and told him, smiling, to take good care of Ryhad.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, but promised he would, and that was apparently the right answer. And that was it, that was all, and they left Kiev with as little ceremony as they had entered it.

Last they’d heard, Vike and the others were still in China. It was optimism and faith alone that convinced Ren that she was coming to meet him: she had moved, yes, but district numbers meant nothing to him. Ryhad tried to use his ability, but it seemed she still wasn’t in range: with no real idea where they were supposed to be heading, they aimed for Kazakhstan.

 

 

On February 28th, the tower made an announcement. It came out of nowhere: the skies which had, for weeks, stayed silent, split open with a cheerful child’s voice saying, “Ding dong! Version update notification. March 14th, 2018 — the Black Tower version 3.0 will come online. Please familiarise yourselves with the new version rules as soon as possible. The new version rules are as follows. First: assembly instances will open. All players please look forward to them. Second: all players must now participate in a game once a fortnight. Players who fail to comply will be forced to participate without warning. Rules from the previous version remain valid.

“Ding dong! The new version will be launched on March 14th, 2018. Please look forward to playing under new rules!”

Ren looked up at the sky in a put-upon fashion. They’d been driving, continuing their zig-zag route around Kazakhstan in the hope of picking up some sign of Vike (an as yet fruitless venture), and Ryhad had stopped the car so they could all listen to the tower announcement.

“What the hell is an assembly instance?” Ren asked in an open question.

“An instance where everyone’s assembled together?” Norhan suggested airily.

“We’ve already got group instances.”

“Maybe the tower assembles everyone.”

“It already does,” Ryhad pointed out, leaning on the steering wheel. “Hence how all of us met.”

Ren was in the back seat so he couldn’t see for sure that Norhan rolled his eyes, but there was a pause that would have held an eye-rolling nicely. “Well, I don’t know, do I? Maybe it assembles a whole lot of people.”

‘ _He_ _’s right,_ ’ Caïn said, stretching with a yawn on Ren’s lap before curling back up. ‘ _Of course you can_ _’t tell them, but for your own reference, that’s what they are. The tower assembles a certain type of person together for a game: they’re great fun._ ’

‘ _Is that sarcasm?_ ’

‘ _Wait and find out._ ’

“I guess we won’t even have to worry about it for a week or so anyway,” Norhan said, stretching his legs out in the space he had been given by the shape of the car. It was smaller than usual: they’d had some trouble picking up a new one. “Maybe it won’t even affect us.”

“I wouldn’t put money on that,” Ryhad said darkly. Since no other announcements seemed forthcoming, he started the car, and soon they were driving down a country road again. The scenery was uninspiring. Kazakhstan was very, very cold: the first day or two had been met with flurries of snow, and if the tower hadn’t toughened their bodies against extreme weather conditions, Ren might have felt it. Instead, they all felt the lack of it. Among grey skies and fields that should have been pretty but were instead drab and washed-out, there was a sense of something missing.

“I wonder if it’ll be any warmer in China,” Ren wondered aloud. “Though I guess the best case scenario is that we don’t even have to go that far.”

“I think it probably won’t be, but hey, spring’s coming.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Ren countered quite rightly, and was taken aback when Ryhad spoke up to say, cryptically, “Spring just gets stuck in your throat anyway.”

Norhan looked at him as if he was suddenly doubting his grasp on the French language. Ren had no such excuse, and had to admit he didn’t understand by saying, “Uh…what do you mean?”

“Don’t you think so? It’s something I read once: the idea of each year being a new start, and with spring being the real start to the year, it ends up reminding you of how you’ve changed since the last year. You draw lines between yourself from last spring and the you now, and so on.”

“And that gets stuck in your throat? The fact that you’re different to how you were last year? It’s literally just progress,” Norhan said. “Everyone grows.”

“Like this? Think of how much you’ve changed since the earth went online,” he said calmly, manoeuvring down a deserted turn-off. “Your body, your mental abilities, your emotional capacity for basically everything. Everyone’s changed, as a necessary means of survival, but I don’t think I’m pleased with how I have. Are you? Did you want to become this?”

No one said anything. Cade was blissfully unaware, staring out of the window on her side with her legs curled up on the seat, but the other two just sat and mulled in the question Ryhad had seen fit to unleash on them. It wasn’t an easy one to answer; it was one they must all have thought of, once or twice.

To try and aerate the heavy atmosphere that had descended upon the car, Norhan said, “Is that what you’re always thinking about? No wonder you don’t smile much.”

“If you don’t think I smile much, I feel like that reflects on your effect on me more than on me personally.”

“It _doesn_ _’t_ ,” Norhan protested fiercely. Then, turning around, “He doesn’t smile much, right, Ren?”

“I, uh…I guess he’s about normal?”

In a tone of total betrayal, Norhan said, “You liar,” and turned back to continue arguing his case. Ren didn’t really pay attention.

‘ _Isn_ _’t it nice that he thinks about the same things that you do when you get all glum?_ ’ Caïn remarked optimistically. ‘ _Maybe you can bond over it and then I won_ _’t have to remind you again that the tower is really doing you a favour by changing your bodies, all things considered._ ’

‘ _You_ _’re not getting rid of my complaining that easily._ ’

‘ _Well, it was worth a try,_ ’ he said good-naturedly and nuzzled against Ren’s hand. Ren stroked his head because it was instinct to do so, but he was thinking. As Caïn had tactfully pointed out, this was something that was often on his mind. He’d had a lot of practice in thinking about it. He knew the lines of thought and easily fell down the same ones as always, but now, hearing someone else voice the same concerns, he felt something else.

“I think,” he said, and the other two stopped talking in mild surprise. He finished: “I think that even if it’s scary to have changed this much, there are still things I don’t regret at all. I’m happy I met all of you.”

The car hummed mildly as they crossed a bridge. It was a difficult thing to reply to, and he began to wonder if he shouldn’t have said it. Like a pebble dropping into the pool of silence that had begun to fill up the car again, Ryhad said, “I’m glad I met you too.”

“And hey, I’m glad I met you too, kitten,” Norhan said, because he didn’t know how to read the mood — or knew how to read it too well and knew they needed something to lighten them up. Either way, it worked, because Ren yelled at him that he had no right to keep using that word, they were long past the Cupid game, and he’d been strongly reprimanded on several occasions already. The situation worsened when Norhan decided to throw oil on the fire by calling Ryhad a kitten as well, and Ren only extricated himself from that mess of ice (Ryhad) and mischief (guess) when he felt Caïn leaving his lap.

A quick glance to the side revealed that Cade was beckoning to him, muttering small things in Greek. When she had Caïn safe in her lap, she stayed very still so as not to disturb him, and stroked him with the care of a curator handling a delicate and ancient artefact. Caïn was, of course, both delicate and probably ancient, so it wasn’t misplaced.

‘ _Can you even tell what she_ _’s saying?_ ’ he asked when Cade cooed something quiet but affectionate at the sight of Caïn stretching his little paws out. ‘ _She_ _’s been talking at you more lately._ ’

‘ _It_ _’s mostly compliments and praise. She thinks I’m soft, and she’s quite right about that._ ’

Ren blinked, now completely detached from the conversation going on in the front of the car, in which Norhan was trying to plead cultural differences as a reason why he should be allowed to call them both ‘kitten’.

‘ _Wait_ ,’ he said, leaning over to Caïn under the guise of wanting to stroke him, which Cade graciously allowed. ‘ _You can actually understand her?_ ’

‘ _Yes? I can understand all human speech. Don_ _’t look like that, Ren: you know I’m a tower monster. If Dracula and all the others could understand you even outside of the tower via the translation system, of course I can too._ ’

‘ _I guess_ _…I just keep forgetting you’re a monster._ ’ He took a moment for neurons to fuse, and almost jumped. ‘ _Wait,_ ’ he said again, but with betrayal rising in his throat like bile, ‘ _does that mean you could have interpreted for me all the time we were in Kiev? You just didn_ _’t?_ ’

‘ _That_ _’s right._ ’

‘ _Ca_ _ïn, do you have any idea what I’d have done to be able to communicate with them?! I told you that! I told you I was frustrated, over and over! Why didn’t you—_ ’

‘ _You couldn_ _’t have let them know you understood,_ ’ Caïn said in a reasonable tone of voice, apparently oblivious to the anger that had just been directed at him. ‘ _I could have told you what they were saying, but you wouldn_ _’t have been able to reply, or given them any indication that you knew what they meant. I judged that to be impractical for a friendship, and I thought you’d likely react like this, so I decided not to tell you. I don’t,_ ’ he said, cutting off Ren’s snap of a reply, ‘ _think that this was the fairest course of action I could have taken. I do think this was unfair of me. But I have to protect my secret. That is my second priority, directly underneath keeping you alive. That_ _’s the truth, and I hope you’ll both understand and believe me._ ’

It wasn’t said in any kind of challenge. It was as if he was laying out the conditions of his aid and companionship, allowing Ren to review them.

Ren wanted to be angry, but couldn’t let anyone else see that he was anything other than composed. He wanted to demand an apology, but he felt that even if he did, he’d just be given one, and it would be sincere. Caïn was that kind of person. It was likely that even if he didn’t feel bad about what he had failed to do, he felt that it was regrettable, but necessary. There was nothing Ren could say against that. Caïn was, after all, right. He had to protect his own secret, for whatever reason. Ren had no right to ask him to jeopardise that. It was a terrible, terrible shame that he hadn’t been able to talk properly with Nuran or Ewen, and probably never would be able to. There were many terrible shames in the world now, and they grew in number each day.

He forced himself to calm down.

‘ _Okay,_ ’ he said. ‘ _I understand._ ’

‘ _If it would make you feel better, I don_ _’t mind interpreting for you on occasion, but I will choose when and where, so as to minimise any slip-ups. Of course I don’t mean to say you’re clumsy, only that I have to be careful._ ’

‘ _I know. If you_ _…I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like that._ ’

And that was the best that could be done. Sitting back into his seat, he looked over at Caïn, currently enjoying long, careful strokes, and tried not to feel rueful. It would pass, of course. Caïn was good to him: he could forgive something like this, given time to ruminate on it.

 

 

For some days, they wandered around Kazakhstan. There were reality instances and scuffles with other groups to keep them busy; they didn’t settle down, but didn’t head in one straight direction, either. They didn’t quite want to head into China if they didn’t have to, given the terrain and the total lack of any kind of Chinese between them. It was a sort of waiting game: waiting both for any sign of Vike, and for the time to be right for them to attack the fifth floor so they could let her know from their side. The fifth floor was a highly-contested subject between them: Ryhad thought they should attack it, Norhan wanted to wait until they had better props, and Ren was on the fence. He wanted to get closer to his sister, of course, but he also knew that with three high-level players, the fifth floor was likely to be difficult, and he didn’t want to lose anyone.

They waited, then. There were things to be kept busy with — showers and the acquisition of new clothes, for a start — and even when there weren’t, they were comfortable enough with each other to be able to live together without any grand drama to keep things interesting. Eventually, they came to a compromise: once the tower moved into version 3.0, they would attack the fifth floor (or the fourth, in Cade’s case). That seemed fair. They were, in fact, driving back to a known tower location on March 14th, just after the new version went into effect, when a new tower announcement rang out over the empty countryside.

“Ding dong! At 18:32 on March 14th, 2018, Russia District 380 stowaway Vike Larle has successfully cleared the black tower’s fifth floor.”

The announcement repeated two more times. Everyone in the car paused.

“Well,” Norhan said. “Back to Russia it is, then.”

They drove as far as they could that day, but even with headlights, it wasn’t comfortable driving at night with no street-lamps: they stopped off at a city close to the border with the plan to head back west to Volgograd, a city they’d passed through on the way to Kazakhstan, and make their way up to Moscow from there. Getting into the same zone was the important part: if she (and hopefully Einierre too) knew they were in Russia as well, they could both converge on the first meeting place anyone would think of when given the entirety of Russia to choose from.

“Unless she’s more of a St Petersburg girl,” Norhan suggested that night, in yet another abandoned house. “If she goes there, we’re in trouble. How are apart are they again?”

“A long way,” Ryhad said in a disinterested voice. He was going around lighting some of their candles with one of the many boxes of matches they’d stockpiled, since it had become too unreliable to assume abandoned houses would just have those things. “But if we can attack the fifth floor in Moscow, it should tell her we’re in District One, and that will be enough. Maybe my ability might even work if we’re in the same zone, who knows.”

“I hope so…” Ren slumped back against the base of the sofa, a sleeping Caïn between his legs to match the sleeping Cade lying on the sofa above him. “Do you think we ought to take inventory of all our props, since we’re probably not going to be going through any other instances before the fifth floor?”

‘ _Excellent decision._ ’

Not quite a sleeping Caïn, then. Ren was on his way to feeling pleased from the praise until Norhan said, “Yeah, we could actually address the Cupid props, too,” and then there was only a stiff feeling of awkwardness locking all of them together.

Cupid’s props were a touchy subject. They had looked at them after the fourth floor and promptly put them away with no intention of looking at them ever again, but that was, of course, an impractical way of handling props, especially props from a tower floor.

“We have to use them at some point, I guess,” Ren said in a thoroughly unconvinced voice.

The three of them sat in a circle on the really very nice carpet under flickering candlelight (the windows curtained up and blocked out as best they could manage), and they looked at each other. Sighing, Ren got out his. It was a slim stick of lipstick that looked like anything you might pick up from a high-end makeup brand. It also happened to be awful.

 

[Prop: Cupid’s Omniscient Lipstick]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Quality: Good.]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: The owner should wear the lipstick and kiss another player to activate it. The owner will have full knowledge of that player’s ability.]

[Restrictions: None.]

[Remarks: Mints not provided.]

 

“I don’t want to use it,” he said, looking down at the glowing letters before they faded away. “We don’t need to know anyone’s ability that desperately.”

“A kiss isn’t _desperate_ ,” Norhan said, and was mostly drowned out by Ryhad’s more sensible counter-argument: “It would be wise to know exactly what your ability is, though, since the only way we’ll find out if you’ve over-used it is if you die for good.”

“Yeah, but…” Ren whined, and then left it there. He didn’t have any actual arguments: it was just embarrassment. It wasn’t even any particular reluctance: just embarrassment.

“Well, okay, fine, even if we put yours aside, I’ve got two to deal with,” Norhan said, getting out a small piece of wrapped chocolate and four small silver rings tied together by string. The chocolate read as such:

 

[Prop: Sugar Rush]

[Owner: Norhan Eppalai (stowaway)]

[Quality: Good.]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: Once fed to another player, that player will become aware of the owner’s deepest secret.]

[Restrictions: Must be fed to another player by the owner.]

[Remarks: Over-sharing is caring, kids!]

 

“I’ll admit this one is less useful,” he said, “but does anyone want me to find out their deepest secret?”

“No way.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then that leaves this one.” With a sense of resignation, he tapped the rings. The instructions began to glow above them, blindingly bright in the dimly-lit room, and as damning as the clap of a judge’s gavel.

 

[Prop: Understanding Between Lovers]

[Owner: Norhan Eppalai (stowaway)]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Level: 2]

[Attack: None.]

[Function: The relevant parties must wear the rings during charging and activation. 4 rings are provided but the minimum required to activate is 2. The prop is charged by the relevant parties mating. The prop can be activated at any point within 2 weeks of being charged, and once activated, the relevant parties will be able to communicate non-verbally for a period not exceeding 5 hours (can be cancelled at any time).]

[Restrictions: One-time use prop. Once 2 rings have been activated, all rings are considered to have been activated, and any spare rings cannot be used at a later time.]

[Remarks: If it’s for the sake of a prop, is it really your first time?]

 

They all looked down at the words until they finally faded away, leaving only the stain of their meaning.

With feeling, Ren said, “This is a nightmare.”

“It’s not a nightmare! It’s only a nightmare because you keep making such a big deal about it!” Norhan objected, laughing. “There’s nothing wrong with shagging to keep the tower happy—”

“Yes there _is_.”

“Look,” Norhan said, spreading his hands out in a pacifying manner. “We’re probably going to end up attacking the tower in the next week at most, right? And we don’t know for sure that we’ll get a chance for a breather before the next game we’re sucked into, if one happens before then, right? So if we’re going to, uh, charge them, it’s probably going to have to be now. And we all agree that this is a useful prop and we should use it?”

That couldn’t be denied. Both of them nodded.

“Right. Let’s be practical about this,” he said, almost pleading. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, right? Just think of it as a one night stand but with more of a purpose. So are either of you straight?”

There was a pause, an exchanged glance, and both of them shook their heads.

“Didn’t think so. Okay, if there are no objections, I’ll take the one who isn’t a virgin.”

Flustered beyond words, Ren sat bolt upright and hissed, “You don’t get to assume that!”

“You’re kidding no one, Ren.”

He was going to argue more when Ryhad interrupted them both by saying, “You have admirable faith in me.”

They both stared at him.

“Have you not…” Norhan tilted his head in a question. When he got a shake of the head in answer, he exclaimed, “Why _not_ , though? I mean, we’ve all established that I’m hotter than you—”

“I’m sorry, when was this?”

“—but even so, you look great and you’re a decent guy, and—”

“And I never came out.”

Norhan had been listing off reasons on his fingers and now let his hands drop. “Oh,” he said in unison with Ren, who was perfectly happy to accept that as an answer until he thought about it for two seconds.

“Wait,” he said, leaning forward and raising a finger as if to underline his point. “Why weren’t you out?”

“Why do you think, Ren?” He seemed to be doing a good job of acting dignified about the entire thing, but even he had to look away now, pushing his fringe to the side. “It was my father.”

“…your father,” Ren repeated. “Your father…whose brother has a male partner who we met less than a month ago?”

Ryhad looked back at him sternly. “Rïsel is not his…” He trailed off, and paused. Comprehension dawned on his face in an uncharacteristic display of open emotion. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I suppose he is his partner.”

Ren and Norhan shared a frantic look, and Norhan took the next one: “Are you serious? You didn’t know?”

“I suppose it never clicked.”

“How did it never click?!” they both asked in hushed cries of amazement, so as not to wake up Cade.

“Your cousin is literally a lesbian!” Ren added.

“There were always different rules for her,” Ryhad said with a shrug that might have been an attempt at hiding his discomfort. “She lived with her mother mostly, anyway.”

They decided to drop it. Ryhad was obviously embarrassed (in his own way) about it, so there was no point in rubbing it in. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes while everything sank in.

“Well,” Ryhad said eventually, getting to his feet. “It’s going to have to be one of us, and I don’t mind.”

Norhan looked up at him, biting his lip. “I’m stuck between wanting to take offence at this being something you might mind, and also guilt because I feel bad about this now.”

“What’s there to feel bad about? The prop will be useful.”

“I mean…” He let his lip go and shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright!” Getting up as well, he threw his arm around Ryhad’s shoulders and said, “Let’s go charge this thing, then! God knows I’ve been needing to get some.”

Perhaps out of some brand of embarrassment, Ryhad didn’t say anything to that.

Ren was mostly in a state of shock. He could only nod when Norhan said they’d go find a different, nearby house for privacy and all that; he confirmed in silence that using the Cheshire Cat’s Pas De Deux, while quick, wouldn’t exactly be practical if he needed to get a hold of them, since it caused the users to swap places totally; he then agreed when they said that what with all the silence, they’d hear if anything went wrong, so just to call out anyway if he needed them. Then he watched them go, and — out of the good manners that had been instilled in him since birth — wished them luck before he really knew what he was saying.

‘ _Well, that was exciting,_ ’ Caïn said once they were gone. ‘ _I was hoping you_ _’d eventually use that prop: it’s a very good one. Your lipstick is too, but whether you use it or not is, of course, up to you._ ’

‘ _I can_ _’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this._ ’

‘ _I think the most unbelievable part is that Cade slept through all of that. Poor thing. Are you still in shock? It wasn_ _’t that scandalous, surely._ ’

‘ _It_ _’s not that I’m_ scandalised…’ Ren said, lying down on the carpet so he could stare wide-eyed up at the candlelight dancing over the ceiling. ‘ _It_ _’s just, like…_ ’

‘ _Did you want to join? I_ _’m sure they’d let you if you ask. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s perfectly natural to be interested in sex: you’re nineteen and it’s been a long period of stress without—_ ’

‘ _Please stop talking! Just stop talking about it!_ ’

He thought he heard Caïn laugh before going back to his nap.

 

 

The next morning was silent. Ren’s night had been sleepless and that might have mattered back when he needed regular sleep, but now it didn’t even give him an excuse to sleep in the car. He didn’t feel tired at all. He felt like all his nerves were on fire.

The other two didn’t talk about it. Not in a bad way: they didn’t seem on bad terms all of a sudden, which really would have been the end of the world, but they just didn’t mention it beyond confirming that the rings were charged. Norhan was in a very good mood and that was about all.

It was a very long day of mostly-silent driving.

They were driving down the A-31, past the Russian border, when Ryhad stopped the car. Ren had been dozing, and looked up in bewilderment because it was dark, but not dark enough that he couldn’t tell they were in the middle of nowhere.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, getting out of the car when the others did. Norhan went to get his sister; with Caïn very close by his ankles, Ren followed Ryhad up the road. He had to go slowly, scared of tripping over unseen obstacles, but soon he was close enough to see what Ryhad did: a small white rabbit, a few metres ahead. There was enough light to look at each other with matching expressions of wariness. There was no way this wasn’t the tower’s doing.

“Should we avoid it?” Ryhad asked the party in general.

“I don’t think we can, at this point.”

There wasn’t much choice: the world was already collapsing into white as they grouped together, and then there was nothing to do but wait for the tower to call out their fate.

It didn’t take long.

“Ding dong! The players Ren Delacroix, Ryhad Dalisirene and Norhan Eppalai have successfully entered the assembly instance for Russia zone players who have cleared the tower’s fourth floor — ‘Good Girls Love to Gamble’. As of 17:43 on March 15th, 2018, a total of 9 players have successfully entered the dungeon. 9 players have cleared the tower’s fourth floor and 1 player has cleared the tower’s fifth floor.

“All players, please play nicely with Snegurka!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bai ruoyao: haha old virgins  
> hosgard: oh, for... who let the vermin in? jiirva go get a broom  
> jiirva, wielding a scythe: on it
> 
>  
> 
> [for the shays in the audience, in at least one author's note in the original, bai ruoyao laughs about certain people being old virgins, hence this]


	26. good girls love to gamble and good boys know when to keep their mouths shut

When the light cleared, they were in a casino. Ren had never been to one before, but it wasn’t easily mistaken: the ground was carpeted in thick, dark plush; the ceiling was low and there were a number of ridges hanging from it, like the beginnings of waterfalls, but swirling all around the ceiling with clusters of bright lights instead of water droplets. There was an uninhabited bar packed with bottles of all kinds, and while the space he, Ryhad and Norhan were in only contained a giant table like one he’d seen used for card games in films, stairs led down into a different area filled with rows of slot machines. There were other players there: three of them. Catching sight of them, Ren stood very still, feeling the strain of his eyes opening wider than they should have, and then he began to run.

“Ren!”

Vike had seen him too: she ran towards him and caught him when he jumped down the stairs into her arms, swinging him around with no apparent effort. She’d always been strong, but this was new, and he didn’t mind it at all. It was far more important that he’d finally found her: that her arms were tight around him, that he could breathe in her familiar scent, that she didn’t put him down until Einierre came running up to join in, and even then it was just so the three of them could hug on a level Einierre could reach.

“I can’t _believe_ you’re okay,” Einierre said when they were finally far enough apart to talk properly. Taking Ren’s face in her hands she looked him over as if to check for damage, and grinned. “You look the same as always.”

“You do too!” he countered, breathless with giddy laughter. “I was starting to think we’d never meet up!”

“We’d have got there in the end,” Vike said reassuringly, straightening out his hair for him. “The tower announcements were really very fortunate in that respect, and really, if we’d just known you were in Russia, we’d have gone somewhere nice and findable, like Moscow—”

“That was our plan too!”

“See?” she beamed. “We’d have got there. And now we don’t even have to. But what an odd location for a game,” she said, looking around. “I don’t much like the look of this. Do any of you know how to play cards? I’ve never done it. I suppose Acqen might have, he seems the type, but—”

“Ren!” Einierre said urgently, pulling his face to look at her. “I need to check. Do you have an ability?”

“I…yes?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” she said with great depth of emotion, stamping her foot on the plush carpet that only muffled the sound. “Damn it. Fine. Okay, you beat me on this one.”

“If you look at it in a certain way, maybe you’ve beaten him because you’ve come as far as he has without an ability?”

Einierre’s face lit up and her eyes shone as she looked at her girlfriend in total awe of this self-serving logic. “You are so right,” she said lovingly, taking Vike’s hand to kiss. “That’s exactly how it is.”

“Just in case anything happens,” Ren said, interrupting this exchange because he was used to them doing this at all hours of the day, “my ability means I can revive, so don’t worry if I die, okay? I’ll just come back.”

“What the hell,” Einierre said flatly.

“That sounds very alarming,” Vike said sympathetically. “Mine lets me sniff out danger — literally, I mean — but I’ve got to say, it’s never very useful in actual games, it just goes haywire. Oh,” she said, putting her unkissed hand to her mouth, “just…just so we know, are your parents…?”

Ren looked away, to a gilded banister polished so brightly it reflected the rest of the casino. “Yeah, they didn’t make it. I don’t think I know anyone but you two who did.”

There was a moment of solemnity. Einierre said, “That really sucks: I’m sorry, Ren. Your parents were absolute legends. But on the bright side, we’re pretty sure Vike and my parents are all dead.”

Ren perked up. “Oh yeah, you’re right, that is a bright side.”

“Are you ever going to introduce me or are we just going to be bystanders to this little reunion you’ve got going on here forever?”

Both women turned around to look at the short man leaning against a slot machine. His fur-lined parka dwarfed him in a way that managed to be flattering and from under his straight blond fringe leered a predatory smile and eyes to match. He wasn’t the sort of person who inspired confidence (and Einierre looked upon him with mild disgust), but Vike went over to him and held out an introductory hand, so Ren supposed he was probably safe.

“This is Acqen,” she said. “You’ve probably heard of him in the tower announcements…? We picked him up on the way, and he’s very, um, powerful, so he ended up staying with us — which isn’t to say that we’d only have made friends with powerful people, of course, I just mean that he really is very powerful and also he just happened to end up coming with us, and though we really did think he wanted to kill us at the start, we’re fairly sure he doesn’t now, so…”

“He’s a pest,” Einierre said when Acqen came over to take possession of Ren’s hand and shake it. “You don’t have to get along with him if you can’t. Seriously, don’t force yourself.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Acqen said, his smile widening as he looked up into Ren’s eyes with an emotion Ren couldn’t quite decipher but thought was probably tangential to hunger. “I’ve heard so much about you: let’s be friends, Ren. Did you say you can revive? That’s fascinating — how many times can you do that before you run out?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but don’t tell him,” came Ryhad’s voice, and Ren turned away from Acqen’s unsettling smile to see the other two come closer. Norhan was frowning, likely because his sister hadn’t come into the game with them (though Caïn had this time, and was enjoying a nap on a pool table).

“Are these your new friends?” Vike asked brightly, pushing hair behind an ear. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Similarly politely, Einierre said, “Thank you for looking after our useless little brother while we couldn’t.”

“I’m not useless!”

Despite how rude Einierre had chosen to be, he introduced Ryhad and Norhan to her and the others anyway, and would have introduced Caïn too, but remembered at the last second that his presence in the game might bring up some unwanted questions, so for the time being he left him on the bar.

Norhan hadn’t been anywhere near as friendly as he usually was when Ren had introduced him, so, leaning against the banister, Ren said, “Cade’s going to be fine, Norhan… She’s clever and she can take care of herself, and it’s not like we were in a city anyway. She’ll just stay close to the entrance and wait.” Then, to the others, “His little sister didn’t make it into the game because she never cleared the fourth floor.”

“Oh, that’s terrible!” Vike said with genuine horror that apparently won her all of Norhan’s good will in two seconds flat. “Well, you’ll have to win this one, then, won’t you?”

They all looked at each other.

“Can we…do that?” Ren asked.

“What, rig a game? Totally,” Norhan said. He’d been taken aback at first too, but was now getting into his stride. “That’s such a good idea, Vike, thank you. Ren, I approve of your sister.”

“What if this is one where the losers die?” Acqen asked in a way that suggested he might find that outcome amusing. “Would you still ask us to let you win then?”

“Yes.”

“His sister’s young,” Ryhad explained to the thwarted Acqen. “We should do everything we can to help him win.”

“That sounds fine to me as long as we don’t actually die,” Einierre said, hanging off her girlfriend’s arm, “but does anyone know what he’ll be winning? The game doesn’t seem to be starting. Unless that’s the monster over there?” she asked, pointing to Caïn.

“Oh, that’s just…that’s just Caïn!” Ren said, slightly flustered, and went to pick him up. “He’s my pet. I picked him up on the way.”

“Yeah, he’s just a fox,” Norhan said, because he still seemed distracted, but the others were justifiably unconvinced. Even Ryhad seemed questioning, which was a real blow, because Ren had thought he’d happily swallowed the fox story months ago.

“He wasn’t with either of us on the fourth floor,” he said, shifting his weight to better face the extremely guilty Ren and the ball of white fluff he was holding. “Why do you think the tower’s let him in here?”

“I mean, why does the tower let him in any of the games when he’s not a player, right?” Ren said with an overly-bright laugh.

‘ _I think that might have worsened their doubts, honestly_ ,’ Caïn remarked in a very accurate assessment of the situation.

‘ _Then help me!_ ’

‘ _Remind them they don_ _’t know how the tower treats animals: they have no reason to suspect this isn’t just what happens._ ’

And so Ren did so, as nonchalantly as he could, walking back to the others. Vike looked perfectly happy to accept that answer, and bent to stroke Caïn; Einierre shrugged and did the same. Acqen looked as if he had something else to say, but before he had the chance, there was the sound of footsteps from behind them. Everyone stiffened and turned as one, to see three more players come around the side of the bar.

There had been no sign of them before, Ren was sure of that. Either they’d heard the voices and come from further into the game territory, or they’d only just arrived; in the end, neither way made too much of a difference. Now all nine players were accounted for.

Acqen’s eyes narrowed as he saw them come into the room and stop a cautious distance away. “That’s the Sanastar trio I was telling you about,” he said in an undertone, presumably to Vike and Einierre, but it wasn’t quiet enough to not be picked up by the strangers.

One of them, androgynous and bony, their visible skin covered in tattoos, scowled at him and spat back, “I thought you’d left Russia, Acqen. What the fuck are you doing here?”

They were the only one to react with obvious emotion. The middle-aged woman next to them looked the nervous type, hiding behind wide glasses and a heavy fringe, but she didn’t offer anything more than slight tension in her lips to communicate that she’d heard anything. The man next to her didn’t react at all. There was a look of profound disinterest written across his delicate, perfectly-balanced features. He was as stunning as Cupid had been, but sharper and almost devoid of colour; he was a lightning strike against the dark colours of the casino. His clothes were white and made of sharp lines, his skin was alarmingly pale, and his curling white-blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that left his harsh bone structure to speak for itself. Ren couldn’t look away for some time.

“Aävardan Jayära, Kirinz Lair and Eïen Sanastar,” Acqen pointed them out for the party at large with spite in his voice. “They’re all official players but no one really knows what their abilities are. Believe me, I’d love to tell you.”

Aävardan shot him a withering look, and perhaps the fight would have escalated, but (having now recovered) Ren decided to step in: he did this literally, by stepping into the space between them and saying, “I don’t know what this game is going to be like, but I hope we can manage to get through it without killing each other. If—”

“Oh, don’t be a killjoy,” came a bored female voice from the slot machines behind them, and they all turned around to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on one of the machines. She hopped off it in a great wave of white fur: it hung from her in an off-the-shoulders cloak that trailed behind her, mostly covering the ice-blue dress she had on underneath that seemed to be fashioned after military lolita fashion, of all things. A cascade of hair in different shades of blue tumbled down to nestle around the top of her cloak, and her pretty face was twisted into an expression of deep disdain for all of them. When she opened her mouth, there were fangs instead of teeth, and, more unnervingly, the colours of her eyes were inverted: her sclera deep blue while her irises glowed white.

“This is a disaster,” she said in an irritated voice, coming to sit on the bar to lounge. “Not only did it take you _forever_ to all get here, I don’t even get one of the good games. If that bitch of a China zone player hadn’t hurt my grandfather, we’d have an actual game on our hands, but _no_ , I get stuck with this fucking assembly game like that’s any sort of consolation. Don’t mind me,” she said contemptuously, “feel free to start ripping each other apart whenever.”

Predictably, none of the players moved.

‘ _Oh dear,_ ’ Caïn said in a weary voice. ‘ _I_ _’d hoped to avoid her this time, too._ ’

‘ _Is she bad?_ ’

‘ _In her own games, Snegurka is famously sadistic. I suppose we_ _’ll have to wait and see how bad she is in an assembly instance._ ’

Snegurka looked over all of them, her lip curling, and she forced an unpleasant smile. “Well, then,” she said in murderous tones, “if you won’t humour me, let’s play cards.”

“Ding dong! Nine players have assembled for a fun card game together. All players please submit to Snegurka’s rules and keep her amused while her grandfather recovers. The game rules are as follows.

“First: there are four teams and one arbiter. These roles will be given out by Snegurka before the game begins.

“Second: this is a game of bluff. Taking the cards Snegurka gives out, each time plays one card per round, announcing the card aloud. The cards are only turned over at the end of each round. The team that played the lowest card in that round will receive a punishment from Snegurka. Punishments can be avoided by calling bluff: if one team calls another team’s bluff, the player members of each team with enter one-on-one combat. No punishment will be given out in rounds where at least one bluff is called.

“Third: each round, one member of each team is chosen to play the card. The other member can consult with the player member but cannot directly affect the card that is ultimately played, nor can they call another team’s bluff. The player members are chosen each round by the arbiter rolling dice.

“Fourth: one-on-one combat can only end in either disqualification or death. In the former case, both members of that team are sent to the tower. Disqualification is considered to have occurred when one player can no longer stand, or voluntarily gives up. A player will also be disqualified for attacking a player other than their opponent while in on-on-one combat.”

“This is such bullshit,” Snegurka grumbled.

“Fifth: the arbiter cannot directly affect the gameplay, but each round must tie themselves to a team of their choosing. If that team receives a punishment, so too will the arbiter. If that team is disqualified, so too is the arbiter.

“Sixth: the last team left is considered the winner.

“Seventh: cheating is punishable by death.

“All players please enjoy this relaxing break with Snegurka!”

“You’d better believe I’m going to make those punishments count,” Snegurka said vengefully once the tower had finished. “Now line up, I need to put you into teams.”

She did this with every semblance of arbitrariness, until it came to choosing the actual arbiter. Her eyes roved over the players, and eventually she pointed at Einierre.

“I’ll have you,” she said. “Come here.”

With an expression of bone-deep revulsion, Einierre did as she was told and climbed onto the bar just to have Snegurka put an arm around her shoulders and murmur something in her ear. This made her jump quite badly, and, as Snegurka’s long nails (filed to points) dug into her shoulder, she nodded.

“Well, then,” Snegurka said without taking her arm off Einierre. “The rest of you can go and sit at the table in your teams, and if you feel like rebelling, that’s fine, because I have knives and I like to use them.”

No one took her up on the offer. They went instead to sit around the enormous table — enormous enough that there were easily three metres between each team, because the top of the table seemed built to contain those on-on-one fights the tower had gone on about. The teams themselves were unfortunate: Norhan and Vike sat together, which was lovely for them, but Acqen and Aävardan had been put together and were glaring at each other like two cats ready to fight for territory, Ryhad and Kirinz were ignoring each other, and Ren was sitting very still with Caïn on his lap, trying not to be intimidated by Eïen.

It was difficult not to be intimidated. He kept sneaking glances until Caïn told him pleasantly to stop that.

“Let’s go, I guess,” Snegurka said with same level of tension and irritation with which she did anything. “Just make sure to lose so I can kill you. Girl, roll the die.”

Einierre gave her a look, but did roll the silvery die she’d been given: it landed on a three.

“Okay, this round let’s say everyone on the right is an even number,” Snegurka said, and began to point at them. “So you, you, you and you are players this round.”

The ‘you’s were Eïen, Norhan, Kirinz and Acqen. While Einierre announced that she’d tie her fate to Vike’s team, they picked up the cards that had been placed before each team: Ren noted with distaste that the cards were all high quality selfies of Snegurka with little numbers in the corners.

“Anyone who has anything to say about the selfies can go ahead now,” she said sweetly.

“What filters did you use?”

Ren looked over at Acqen in blank surprise that he’d ask something that trivial. Everyone except the people who already knew him looked at him with similar expressions; even Snegurka, until she recovered and said, “None, of course!”

Acqen looked up at her, down to the cards, back up to her again, and then, very deliberately, smirked. “If you say so.”

 “I’m going to _fucking_ kill you!” Snegurka roared, her hair and fur cape billowing around her by some wind no one else could feel. Einierre, still being held in one of her arms, looked like she was just about ready to be anywhere but there, and Acqen only smirked wider until it was all brought to a close by a calm voice.

“If you feel suicidal, at least have the decency to not bring other people into it.”

Acqen shot a glare at Eïen. “Implying I couldn’t take her?”

Snegurka snarled, “You sure fucking couldn’t, you little bitch!” and Eïen, apparently ignoring that, said, “I’m implying anyone could take you: one hit to your ego and you start digging your grave all by yourself.”

“How about we just play the game?” Vike asked hopefully before Acqen could get up on the table and attempt to strangle the impassive Eïen. There were murmurs of agreement.

‘ _Is this_ _…good?_ ’ Ren asked vaguely after Eïen had played a Jack (a charming Snegurka with her eyes closed in an uvu sort of expression).

‘ _Good? You mean the infighting? No._ ’

‘ _No, I meant the game. Like is it going to be okay?_ ’

‘ _Oh, maybe. Isn_ _’t our goal to lose? That should be easy enough. I’m not even thinking about it, honestly: just hope that you get to play the next card so Norhan’s team can call out your bluff and you can get yourself disqualified. The only problem is Snegurka’s punishments. You’ll naturally want to avoid those, so someone’s bluff has to be called out every turn, and if it’s someone who isn’t in on the deal, that might get a little sticky. But Norhan is powerful in combat: I’m sure he’ll be fine._ ’

That was what Ren hoped too, but it didn’t make it any less worrying. He held Caïn tightly and watched the table as Norhan played a 10, Kirinz played what she said was a 9, and Acqen played a King. Snegurka was watching them with hunger in her eyes, and seemed about to pounce until Norhan said, “Bluff,” at Acqen.

He grinned, holding his hands up like there was a gun pointing at him. “You got me,” he said.

“Ding dong! The bluffer and the bluff-caller will engage in combat!” the tower announced while Snegurka’s expression turned ugly and she sat back down, pulling Einierre to slouch with her. Einierre didn’t look at all thrilled by the intimacy she was currently experiencing, and with her face pressed to Snegurka’s chest she stared far, far into the distance.

“You know, I’m getting the feeling that you’re not going to fold right away,” Norhan said, getting onto the small arena that was the enormous table.

“Fold?” Acqen asked, his expression innocent. “Why would I do that? I’m scared of the tower, I don’t want to _lose_ …”

“You’d fucking better not,” Aävardan muttered darkly while Vike slammed her hands onto the side of the table and exclaimed, “Acqen! You know what we agreed!”

“But I’m sca~red,” he said in a sing-song voice, taking off his parka to stretch. “When do we start?”

Snegurka was watching them with the air of a predator watching someone else eat their prey. “Whenever,” she said. “But get it over with and try to kill each other.”

“Don’t be needy,” Acqen said cheerfully, and the next second Acqen wasn’t there, replaced by a middle-aged woman with knives for hands; she flew at Norhan, and when she met him, he was fully-transformed and ready to bite down on the knives she shoved at his muzzle.

Watching a fight between two shape-shifters was confusing. Norhan mostly relied on his wolf form, but he’d picked up a new technique wherein he transformed mid-jump to generate more momentum: he slipped in between forms to dodge and block, but was always dependent on his fangs and claws for attack. Acqen had no such limitations. If he really had had part of his abilities checked by the tower for the sin of bluffing, Ren didn’t want to know how he usually fought. Seamlessly, he switched between at least four different bodies, each with their own abilities: one moment he was a whirl of blades leaping at Norhan, the next he had his hands to the table as sections of it surged up and solidified in makeshift shields, and in just another moment, he was contorting ‘his’ body in ways that shouldn’t have been humanly possible, but which allowed him to evade the crush of fangs on some body part he might miss. He skidded under Norhan’s wolf legs and gouged deep ridges into the card table with his knives so he could stop himself in time to transform into a young girl and leap in such a way that his legs crumbled up like elastic and then released all their kinetic energy into sending him high, high up. Pushing off the low ceiling, he fell back with the purpose of a peregrine falcon hurtling to earth, transforming mid-fall, and likely would have severed Norhan’s spine if Norhan hadn’t transformed back into a human and met the blades with an expandable saucer shield he’d got from a tea party instance. It shattered upon impact and, without missing a beat, he caught one of the shards and thrust it into Acqen’s shoulder in the half-second he’d taken to catch his balance. Acqen grimaced, and split the grimace up with a grin: he twisted away from the shard, transforming into a body that hadn’t been hurt.

His fighting style was, in a word, relentless. Presumably his different bodies didn’t share lungs or stamina or pain: with each transformation he was good as new again, and Norhan seemed to realise that now. The balance of the fight changed: Norhan went on the defensive, and growls filled the static air of the casino, joining the crashes and screeches of tortured wood each time they misused the table. It might have gone on much, much longer — and Ren wasn’t even fully sure how long it had gone on for: he felt as if he’d been in a daze the entire fight — but before Acqen could attack again, there was a cry of, “Stop this _right now!_ ”

Blinking in surprise while in his teenage girl form, Acqen turned back to look at Vike, who had got to her feet in evident anger. Ren so rarely saw her angry that he didn’t manage to process what was happening right away, but over on the bar, Einierre (still being forcefully embraced by Snegurka) smirked.

“You know what we all agreed!” Vike cried with just enough betrayal mixed in with the reprobation to make anyone feel guilty. “Call disqualification right now before someone gets hurt or I’ll never let you come with us again!”

Acqen shifted back to his probably-normal body, and looked thoroughly admonished, but that didn’t last long. Rolling his eyes, he muttered, “You don’t have to get pissy about it: I was _going_ to…” Then he turned back to the still-guarded Norhan and said, “Fine, I give up, but just so you know, I totally could have beaten you.”

“You whipped little _coward!_ ” Aävardan snarled, but it was too late for that.

“Ding dong! The players Acqen Utei and Aävardan Jayära have been disqualified from the game ‘Good Girls Love to Gamble’ and will be sent to the tower.”

There wasn’t much ceremony about it: one moment they were there, then they began to fade, and within two seconds, they were gone. Norhan transformed back to his human form and, sedately, hopped off the table to sit back beside Vike, thanking her. She began to apologise for Acqen’s behaviour, but it was drowned out by Snegurka saying sourly, “We were just getting to the good part. Don’t think I’m going to forget that: if I get my hands on you, you’re fucking dead.”

Vike shot a concerned look at her, but only said, “Einierre, are you alright?”

“Just peachy,” Einierre said, her face still mostly squished against Snegurka’s chest and a possessive claw around her neck.

“Well, that’s alright, then.”

A look of unpleasant satisfaction crossed Snegurka’s face and she bent down to murmur something in Einierre’s ear; Einierre stiffened and hissed something back, but they were too far away to hear properly. Ren looked away from them and finally relaxed, leaning against the edge of the table. Then, because he felt he should, he looked up at Eïen and said, “I’m sorry about that.”

Eïen seemed surprised to be talked to, and looked down with questioning eyes. The warm lights of the casino shone from behind him, making the edges of his hair glow. “Why would you be sorry?”

“We sort of all decided to rig the game,” he said.

“Ren, would it kill you to not tell people everything the second you’ve met them?” Ryhad asked dryly from the other side of the table, around the same time that Caïn said pleasantly, ‘ _You really need to break yourself of this habit._ ’

“Shut up! It’s not like they can stop us at this point,” Ren said in answer to both of them, and turned back to Eïen with an apology in his expression once more. “Acqen looked really strong, so they’ll probably both come out of the tower fine, and if you’ve got to the fourth floor then it’ll probably be fine anyway, but just…sorry for dragging you into this mess anyway.”

Still apparently bewildered to be talked to, let alone apologised to, Eïen tilted his head to the side with an expression that was fast becoming unnerving, and said, “You don’t need to be sorry for that.”

“Okay. I still am, a bit, though.”

As if he was noting this information down internally, Eïen nodded and turned back to face the table. It was difficult to say what he thought about the situation at all, but Ren felt he’d done his part, and left it there. He hadn’t really expected understanding and an agreement to play along, anyway.

For the second round, Einierre rolled a two, and tied her fate to Vike’s team again. Snegurka looked down at the die and sighed, saying in bored voice, “Everyone on the left is… You know, I don’t actually care. The team member with the longest hair can be the player this round, whatever. So you, you and you.”

That meant Eïen, Ryhad and Vike. Eïen glanced down at their cards and played a 10 (an artsy shot of Snegurka that seemed designed to show off her collarbones) and the second he’d called it out, Ryhad said, “Bluff.”

“Ding dong! The bluffer and the bluff-caller will engage in combat!”

Eïen didn’t seem surprised by this outcome, possibly because Ren had just told him the game was rigged. It hadn’t actually been a bluff, so Ryhad would have his ability limited, but it wasn’t as if he used his ability to fight anyway — that had probably been the logic behind his decision.

The two men got onto the table, standing amongst the damage that the first fight had left, and in the time it took Snegurka to say, “Kill each other,” Ryhad had unsheathed both knitting needles and darted in for the first attack.

It was blocked: from nowhere, Eïen had pulled out two dagger-like things that seemed entirely made of jaggedly-cut crystal. These sang when they clashed against the metal of the knitting needles, and sparks flew. Ryhad tried again, but he was pushed away again, and when Eïen attacked, it was with power that didn’t seem to mesh with the grace of his movements. Ryhad had obvious trouble taking the blow, and it was clear in the frown that grew across his face that he was already trying to think of new tactics, since brute strength was never going to work. He tried to use speed to his advantage, and that might have been effective — agility was something he usually excelled in — but here too, he was matched and bested by Eïen, who met every attempt at an attack, his ponytail whirling around in a lagging reflection of his own movements. The card table rang out with the impact of their steps and landings; metal and crystal cried with each confrontation, and it became rapidly clear that this wasn’t a fight Ryhad could win the way he was going at it now.

‘ _You people rely on too few props_ ,’ Caïn said pensively. ‘ _I know it_ _’s difficult to remember to use them in the heat of the fight and all that, but really._ ’

‘ _Usually he_ _’s fine!_ ’

‘ _And right now he isn_ _’t. He seems to be quite conflicted about something, though._ ’

Caïn wasn’t wrong: Ryhad was frowning in a way that wasn’t usual even for him. Ren was just trying to work out what the problem might be when a particularly vicious counter-attack had Ryhad jump to the edge of the table to avoid it, right next to where Ren was sitting. Still crouched, and without turning his head around, Ryhad hissed, “Activate your ability. Sorry.”

And then he leapt up again, and Ren was left hanging in a second of total confusion. He did as he was told; almost in the same second, he saw Ryhad get out Cheshire Cat’s Pas De Deux. It was a ridiculous thing to bring out in the middle of a fight, and it was an even more ridiculous activation line to pronounce while a crystal dagger was heading straight for your throat, but he did it, and the next thing Ren knew, he was staring into Eïen’s eyes as they widened in shock. It was too late: he couldn’t stop the crystal as it cut into Ren’s throat, severing flesh and blood vessels alike.

 

 

Ren woke up to the dulcet tones of the black tower.

“Ding dong! Attacking a player not involved in the one-on-one combat is against the rules! Eïen Sanastar and Ren Delacroix have been disqualified and will be sent to the tower.”

Gasping for air, Ren tried to make out words in the mass of indistinct shouting that was going on around the table, but couldn’t. He could only stare up at the ghostly figure above him, looking down on him with an expression he couldn’t read.

“Ding dong! The black tower’s fifth floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Welcome to the Tranquil Bay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [everyone's taking a nap in the aftermath of the absolute worst, most serves-the-narrative-but-the-rules-make-no-sense game i have ever come up with]
> 
> hosgard: also there's a stunning lack of consistency between you using numerals and just writing the word for numbers
> 
> [and also that]


	27. the (second) mandatory beach episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore.
> 
>  
> 
> also everything after the tower announcement 'you have one hour left', about 3/4s in, was written listening to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s84rIhPuhk) and owes it a lot.

Waves lapped at the side of Ren’s face. They were gentle: the soft kiss of sea foam just brushing against the skin of his cheek before retreating, as if embarrassed. Overhead, there was a lone gull cry to join the whisper of the water. He wrinkled his nose at the pungent salty scent of seaweed from somewhere, and tried to sit up, shielding his eyes from the bright sun.

It was a rock beach. There was no sand, as far as he could see: it was all stones of different sizes, smoothed down by the sea, draped in seaweed in places. Beyond the beach were cliffs which, further down, descended into slopes that seemed traversable. The air was still, and hot, and white spores floated about like flies. Looking around, he tried to find Eïen, but saw someone else first, and froze. In the water beside him was a young woman, looking at him with eyes as wide and vacant as a fish’s. Straggly red hair hung around her unhealthily grey, scale-spotted skin, and a silvery tail extended behind her, back into the water. She wasn’t wearing any clothes, and though her chest was as blank as a fish’s underbelly, Ren instinctively looked only at her face.

“Hallo again,” she said, no trace of emotion in her voice or expression.

Ren considered getting Divine Retribution out, but the Mermaid Princess didn’t seem about to do anything horrible to him, so he didn’t, just yet.

‘ _Far too trusting,_ ’ Caïn told him wearily, and he felt the stroke of fox fur next to his arm. ‘ _But I don_ _’t think she’s dangerous either_.’

“You brought your little doggy again,” she said, watching with those unblinking eyes. “Can I pet him? You don’t mind, do you?”

‘ _Can she?_ ’

There was an internal sigh. ‘ _I suppose we all have to make sacrifices._ ’

“You can,” Ren said guardedly, and shuffled back over the stones while the mermaid reached over with one sinewy arm to stroke Caïn. She watched him intently, her webbed fingers messing up his fur.

“You can’t be offended, okay?” she said without taking her eyes off him. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again. The Sea Witch told me I have to be brave about these things, so I decided if I saw you again I’d ask to pet you. It’s not my fault, you know? You’re as cute as they said you were.”

Ren was distracted from the realisation that she was talking to Caïn, not him, by the sound of crunching stones behind him. He turned, and looked up to see Eïen standing on the beach, blindingly devoid of colour under the bright sun. Apparently he hadn’t woken up in the sea, because he looked as immaculate as he had in the casino. He was looking down at Ren and the mermaid with something that bordered on conflict.

“She hasn’t said anything about this floor yet,” Ren hurried to explain. “She just wanted to play with my fox.”

“I’m not done yet, okay?” she said. “You two just wait for a bit.”

It was awkward being the only one sitting down: trying to ignore how half his body was wet, Ren got to his feet and, casting a rueful look at how Caïn was valiantly soldiering through the mermaid’s attentions, he went to stand by Eïen.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About all that, and about Acqen. I mean, I don’t really know him, but I guess he’s on my side so I’m sorry for how rude he was anyway.”

“You don’t have to apologise. I understand that he resents us.”

“Resents you?”

“We met once before. It was humiliating for him, I think.”

Ren made a sound of interest, but because Eïen said nothing else, he let the subject drop and hugged his arms, waiting for the mermaid to be finished. He wasn’t really expecting any more conversation: he was surprised when Eïen said, “You cleared the second floor first globally, and the fourth floor on hard mode.”

Ren looked at him in mild bewilderment. “I…yeah, I did, I guess.”

“We were looking,” Eïen said, “for other high-level players. To spread the word.”

With absolutely no idea what he was on about, Ren listened, still half-keeping an eye on the mermaid to make sure she didn’t do anything to Caïn.

Eïen continued. “A Chinese player called Huai Yue came to find us. She and Vike Larle cleared the first floor initially, you might remember. One of her team overheard a tower monster and found out some sensitive information. She’s been telling as many people as she can find, because she thought more people should know: we agreed to pass on the message. I hope you’ll do the same,” he said, finally meeting Ren’s eyes.

“What kind of information?”

“It’s about the disappeared population.”

“Everyone who went missing?”

“Yes. But they didn’t go missing. That’s the thing: they entered the tower too,” he said, gently taking into his hand a spore that had wafted over to him. “They’re here,” he said, looking up from the spore, to Ren.

Ren didn’t understand right away. The dots wouldn’t connect: he was left blank, waiting for clarification, until the mermaid said, “Didn’t you know? I thought everyone knew.”

“We didn’t know,” Eïen told her in a tone somewhere between serenity and contempt.

“You should have asked, you know?” she said, lifting her hand from petting Caïn to snatch a spore out of the air. They were everywhere, floating, floating. They’d been in most of the tower games Ren had played. He’d got used to them. The mermaid looked at the one in her fingers and said, “It doesn’t really matter, though? They’re just old humans,” and she popped the spore into her mouth.

It screamed as she swallowed it, like the spores had screamed when they had burned with the fireflies, like they had screamed when Ren had fed them to the Dormouse.

“They’re not…” Ren wanted to back away, back to somewhere the spores weren’t, but they were everywhere, all around him. He laughed nervously. “They’re not, you know— they can’t be. Right? They’re not people. They can’t speak, or…or think, or—”

“Most can’t,” the mermaid said, going back to stroking Caïn. “I don’t remember the numbers, but I think…maybe a fifth of them still have a consciousness? I’m not really sure, so don’t take that as fact, okay? They can all scream, though.”

“There are some stories,” Eïen said calmly, “of spores communicating with players. Non-verbally. One of my group had an experience like that, which is why we believed it when Huai Yue told us. Of course, if you haven’t experienced anything of the sort, I can’t expect to convince you.”

But he had. In the Moon Rabbit’s warren, a spore had shown him to one of the mochi. He’d been too out of it then: he’d died three times within a few hours, he hadn’t been able to think about it any deeper than that, he hadn’t thought—

‘ _Of course you didn_ _’t. You shouldn’t blame yourself: you couldn’t have known._ ’

‘ _You knew?_ ’

‘ _I knew._ ’

‘ _Why didn_ _’t you tell me?_ ’ Carefully, he asked — careful not to exhibit any more distress than was right and proper for the situation.

‘ _I thought you_ _’d rather not know._ ’

Caïn wasn’t wrong. He’d rather not have known. Cupping his hands, he watched a spore float into them, and tried to feel something from it.

“What else were we supposed to do, anyway?” the mermaid asked mildly. “The tower can only accept so many players, and only the right ones. So we have to do something with the rest of them, and there are really a very many ways of dealing with them, but this is what we do here. Oh! There are more of you.”

Ren felt distant from himself, but turned to follow her gaze, and saw that Ryhad and Kirinz had appeared on the beach too.

“He disqualified himself as soon as you were gone,” Kirinz said in a world-weary voice, picking her way over the stones to reach her teammate. “I won’t say I tried to stop him because I didn’t, but I was very disapproving.”

“That’s alright,” Eïen said, taking her hand when she offered it. “I was just explaining about the spores.”

“Ah.” She turned back to Ryhad who looked as if he hadn’t dropped his guard since he’d entered the tower. “You might as well know too, I suppose.”

Ren didn’t really listen as they explained it to Ryhad too. He didn’t know what to think, and his body couldn’t decide on what he was feeling.

‘ _You don_ _’t have to feel anything, you know_ ,’ Caïn said, his little black-socked paws now thoroughly soaked by the waves. ‘ _There_ _’s nothing you can do about it, and you had no way of knowing._ ’

‘ _I had you. You were my way of knowing._ ’

‘ _Not if I didn_ _’t tell you, and I didn’t, precisely because I knew it would complicate things. Ren, why are you upsetting yourself over this? It’s a terrible shame, but you already thought all those people were dead. And there really is nothing you can do. It’s the tower’s doing, all of it._ ’

It was, after all, the tower’s doing. There was, after all, nothing he could do about it. Once Ryhad had been told, Ren put on a smile and said, “I believe them. I’ve been helped out by spores before too.”

Ryhad looked at him just a moment longer than was natural. Then he shrugged, sheathed one of the knitting needles, and said, “I’m sorry for killing you.”

A lot had happened in the past ten minutes: Ren didn’t immediately know what he was talking about. Then he remembered, and said, “Oh, no, that’s fine. I mean, for the plan and all. It was smart of you to think of that.”

“I didn’t: Norhan did. We activated the rings.”

“Oh. Okay.” Trying to be as vague as possible about what that meant, since Ryhad was clearly trying not to show all their cards to the others, he asked, “Is he…I mean, is he okay now?”

“He is.”

“And—”

“I’m done, okay?”

They all stood to attention and turned around to look at the mermaid. Her scales shone in the glaring sun and, gently, she pushed Caïn back onto the beach. “I don’t think anyone else is coming, so I’m going to tell you the rules now. I need legs.”

No one said anything. Her tail flipped about lazily in the water, sending up spray that sparkled in the sunlight. “It’s imperative,” she said seriously. “I need to go and woo Snegurka, okay? And I need legs.”

“Snegurka?” Vaguely, Ren remembered her mentioning her before, on the second floor, but now he had a face to put to the name, he was stuck between begrudgingly admitting that the Mermaid Princess didn’t have bad taste on a physical level, and firmly believing she had absolutely terrible taste in personalities.

“Do you know her? She’s _wonderful_ ,” the mermaid said, taking her face in her hands and closing her unnerving eyes in apparent ecstasy. “She’s so strong and virile and she promised me we’d meet again but she hasn’t come to find me so I need to go and find her. Do you know where she is?”

“We just…” He looked around the others, looking for support that they didn’t see fit to give him. “I mean, we were just in a game with her.”

“You were?!” The mermaid’s eyes snapped open, focusing on Ren and Ren alone. “How is she? Did she mention me?”

‘ _Definitely say yes._ ’

“Y-yeah, she did,” he answered, forcing himself to stay still rather than backing away like he wanted to. With the image of Snegurka taking possession of Einierre like one might a stuffed toy in his mind, he said, “She looked great and she totally talked about you.”

He wasn’t very good at lying, but the Mermaid Princess didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t seem physically able to smile, but her wide eyes were shining. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good, thank you. I absolutely need to go and see her, so you need to fetch legs for me, okay?”

“Don’t you usually get your legs from true love’s kiss?” Kirinz asked.

“I can, but my true love is Snegurka,” the mermaid said with total conviction. “Are you trying to say one of you awful humans could be my true love? I have to laugh.” (She didn’t.)

“What about Caïn?” Ren asked, lifting the poor fox up as a sort of sacrifice. “You like petting him.”

‘ _Ren, I understand that you_ _’re not best pleased with me for keeping things from you, but this is really unfair._ ’

It didn’t matter, anyway: the mermaid wrinkled her nose and said, “I have standards, okay? I don’t want just any slimy monster as my true love: it has to be a boss monster. So you need to go and get me legs, you can’t squirm out of this. You need to go and find the Frog Prince and take his legs for me.”

“Ding dong! Triggered the main branch: ‘In True Love, Everything is Justice’. What a pinch the Mermaid Princess is in! She needs to express her love but she can’t even leave the ocean. All players please locate the Frog Prince, remove his legs, and bring them back to the Mermaid Princess. There is no time limit. All players remaining in the party by the time the Mermaid Princess has the Frog Prince’s legs in her arms will be considered winners. Let’s all help smooth the path for love!”

That was it. They all waited, but nothing else came. After a few shared looks of confusion between Ren and Kirinz, because the other two didn’t seem willing to admit confusion, the mermaid piped up to say, “Hurry up! We don’t have all day, okay? Go on.”

There were a few seconds more of hesitation, but since nothing else was happening, they did as they were told. The group began to walk down the beach, towards the eventual degradation of the cliffs into something they could climb over. Ren jogged to join Ryhad in front of the other two, still carrying Caïn in his arms. They were both damp, but the sun was bright and he imagined they’d be dry in no time. He concentrated on that rather than on the spores around him.

“Ren.”

“Yeah?” He looked up, trying to smile cheerfully.

“The mermaid called Caïn a monster.”

Somehow, the cheerful smile survived on Ren’s face, but it was a close thing. He’d been hoping Ryhad would selectively not hear that part, but since he had heard it after all, there was no choice but to blaze on through. After a quick deliberation with Caïn, he said nonchalantly, “Yeah, that’s what he is, I guess.”

There was a long pause. “He’s… You mean he is one?”

“Probably? I mean, I picked him up on the first floor. He’s probably a monster rather than an underground person. Right?” He held Caïn up to eye level and Caïn yapped as if in reply.

“You knew?” Ryhad asked with an odd note in his voice.

“Not right away, but by the time I met you, yeah.” It was a small stretch of the truth, and he had to look down at the collection of stones he was alternately walking and scrambling over to say it properly.

“And were you ever going to tell us?”

“Well, I knew you probably wouldn’t like it,” he said in a conflicted voice.

Ryhad seemed speechless. The silence dragged on for a minute or so, accompanied by the scrape of stones, until he finally said, “Norhan wants you to know he’ll never forgive you for letting his sister play with ‘that thing’.”

“You told him?!” Ren looked at him in horror, and hugged Caïn closer to his chest.

“Of course I told him: he’s part of the group too. A group you let a monster into.”

“He’s not a _bad_ monster! He’s just Caïn! He’s never done anything to you anyway, and he’s never even _tried_ to bite Cade or anything, so you can tell Norhan to shut up!”

“I feel like you don’t understand what a breach of trust this is,” Ryhad said coldly. He was a dark stain against the sunny white cliffs, the pearly stones; his voice was ice-water impervious to the beating sun. “If you’d told us up front, it wouldn’t matter so much. It isn’t about whether he’s violent or not: I know he isn’t. I know he likes you, and I know that it’s unlikely he would hurt or betray us, given his track record. If we’d just known to be on the lookout for any unusual behaviour, that would have been fine, and we certainly wouldn’t have forced you to give him up. The problem is that you didn’t see fit to tell us.”

Ren was holding Caïn too tightly. He could feel the tiny heart of a fox beating quickly against his arms, but didn’t let him go. Staring down at his feet, he said, “Are you mad at me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you are.”

“Why ask if you already knew?”

Ren bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I was just scared you wouldn’t like it, and I couldn’t tell you the first time we met, because you wouldn’t have come with me, and Norhan wouldn’t have put Cade in that kind of danger, so—”

“I know why you didn’t tell us originally. There have been plenty of opportunities since. There have been multiple times we specifically talked about Caïn. For god’s sake, your sister’s girlfriend asked about him back in the casino: you could have said then.”

“I just…it’s just been so long… I’m sorry, I really am.”

Ryhad made a sound, but didn’t actually reply. They walked wordlessly, the waves washing against the stone shore to Ren’s left. Guilt wormed into his stomach.

‘ _He_ _’s just hurt,_ ’ Caïn said softly. ‘ _He_ _’ll get over it eventually: he’s only hurt that you didn’t trust him enough to tell him._ ’

‘ _But I do trust him. I didn_ _’t tell him because it’s your secret. But I can’t tell him that,_ ’ Ren said, stating the obvious in the hope that Caïn might tell him that it was alright, that he could come clean about everything.

Predictably, Caïn did not do that. ‘ _It isn_ _’t an easy situation. All we can do is wait for him to recover from it and then you can go back to normal._ ’

He decided to push. ‘ _So I can_ _’t tell him about the rest of…?_ ’

‘ _No._ ’

So that was that. Ren hadn’t known that Ryhad would take such offence. He’d have told him if he’d known, or he liked to believe he would have, because he’d never meant for this. He was caught in the all-consuming guilt of inadvertently hurting a friend.

When they were able to, they climbed up the beach and into the dunes; behind them, Kirinz and Eïen followed, occasionally talking to each other in low voices. They spoke more as the group crossed the dunes, keeping to the paths with thick tufts of dune grass that gave structure to the sand, and when the dunes had flattened out into grassland, Kirinz spoke up.

“Shouldn’t we head that way?” she asked, pointing up the road they’d come to. Beyond them, opposite the dunes and shoreline, were pastures and the suggestion of trees on the horizon; up the road to the side was a tall signpost with signs pointing in all directions, and a figure sitting down beside it, just visible against the light.

Kirinz didn’t bother to explain the obvious: waiting for them to agree with her, she watched them, and blinked in surprise when Ryhad said, “I know where the Frog Prince is, but you can go up there if you want.”

He began to walk again, away from the road. Apologetically, Ren said, “I promise he really does know where to go, it’s not just confidence or anything.”

The other two looked at each other and, apparently deciding that there was no reason for Ryhad to lie about this except to self-sabotage, they followed Ren.

With full faith in his ability, Ryhad took them down a pot-holed road between two fields bordered by hedges. There were people working in the fields: people who looked like normal humans but of course weren’t, chatting together or just bending under the burning sun to pick lettuces planted in rows. Some of them looked over at the group of players, but they didn’t come down to the road: they only watched. Ren still didn’t like the looks in their eyes. He was glad when the hedges at the sides of the road grew slowly taller until it was as if they were in a maze. No sooner had it become impossible to see anything through the thick leaves than the road split, and split again, and so on, and there were little symbols engraved into the dirt road that Ren looked at curiously. The tower called out a few instructions when they passed the first fork, but rather than wait to work out the trick, they just followed Ryhad.

Within half an hour, the labyrinth of hedges fell back to normal sizes again and the scenery had changed completely: here, they were walking through the ruins of something that might once have been a castle. It was an architect’s sketch done in crumbling stone walls that didn’t come up to Ren’s knees, overrun by weeds, and on the other side of them was a great river straddled by seven identical bridges. The tower called out instructions; unerringly, Ryhad walked to the third bridge from the left. As Ren crossed it too, he saw dark shapes moving about under the other bridges. Fascinated, he stared a moment too long, and one of the shapes stared back at him: jumping, he hurried across to the other side and didn’t look back.

“I feel like this isn’t really sporting,” Kirinz said as they skidded down a tall slope into marshland.

“Do you want to figure out the puzzles in your own time?” Ren asked, looking back at her before jumping onto a little mound of muddy grass that looked solid.

“I just don’t think the fifth floor is supposed to be this easy.”

“We haven’t found the Frog Prince yet,” Eïen said mildly, somehow managing to make his way across a soggy marsh without getting any mud higher than his shoes. “Don’t be hasty.”

The air was thick with spores and midges, and Ren didn’t really want either of them touching him, so he had to finally put Caïn down to bat them away properly, but — again ignoring the tower’s instructions — they got across the marsh without a problem. When the ground hardened once more, it was to lead them into low, flat land covered with bushes like rose-hips, but with exaggerated thorns that tugged at their clothes and bit into their skin if permitted. They’d been walking for a long time, and the sun was very bright. Ren’s shirt was damp with sweat and he was fiercely glad that he had short hair, because his nape was having a hard enough time as it was. His throat was dry in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time, because thirst was a thing of the past now, and it came as a relief when Ryhad finally stopped in front of a fairly large bush, looking down on it. Spores floated around him and he brushed them away, gently.

“It’s down here.”

“Down?”

Hidden under the bush was something like a stone man-hole. It took two of them to heave it off. Underneath it was a very, very steep flight of stairs leading down, the entrance just large enough for them to go one at a time. Without hesitating, and while Ren was still grimacing at the idea of having to go down there, Ryhad got onto the first few steps and ducked under the surface, and the others followed suit, because there wasn’t much else to do. Ren hated it, though. The passage was narrow, and steep, and the stairs were slimy, just a little, and the only light came from the entrance. Sound was muffled by the earthen walls. For a long time they walked down, far enough down that the light faded and it was difficult to see where you were walking, and when Ren felt a worm under his fingers he stopped holding the sides for balance, so then there were only the stairs, and the hypnotic sound of four people and one fox descending them.

By his measure, it took twenty minutes before they came to the door, but he’d hated every second of it, so he was willing to admit he might have perceived it as taking longer than it had. Either way, they came to the door eventually, and when Ryhad opened it, they walked out into a corridor made entirely of ice.

It was absolutely freezing, to nobody’s surprise. Ren had cooled down plenty on the stairs and now felt the remaining dampness on his back go unpleasantly cold against his skin. Walking wasn’t as difficult as it might have been, since the ground had been covered in a white carpet for ease of movement, but everything else was ice: it was carved into panelling with embellishments like shells and the suggestion of waves; it was fashioned into candlestick holders for candles that burned but did not melt the ice; and on the solid ice ceiling were etchings that at first looked random and a terrible oversight, but as Ren looked longer, he saw they were drawings. Caïn’s claws clacked against the ice that he’d chosen to walk on instead of the carpet and Ren looked down at him.

‘ _This is_ _…ominous._ ’

‘ _Do you think so? I was just thinking how nice it was. I_ _’ve never been here before. It’s a step up from the Wolf Grandmother’s territory, you have to give it that._ ’

Ren would give it that, yes. Following Ryhad, he and the other two walked along the winding ice corridor until there was, finally, another door: breathing out a cloud of condensation in relief, Ren walked through it and down three steps into a wide ballroom, similarly made of ice.

It was like being inside a snow globe. The walls sloped into a sphere and from them hung white banners with an emblem sewn onto them in a slightly different white. The floor was tiled in white and ice blue, the entire space glowed with the light of several dozen chandeliers, and it had never really had any hope, Ren thought, of feeling welcoming. It was too cold, too empty. To make matters worse, there was a sound echoing around the ballroom: rasping breaths that reeked of death.

In silence, the party walked to the altar in the middle of the room. They were all on edge, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. There were no tricks, no tower announcements. Just an emaciated frog, perhaps half the size of a human, lying on a stone altar, surrounded by ice.

Ren didn’t like looking at the Frog Prince. He was drying up like grasses dried in drought, his skin strained and stretched over a body that hadn’t eaten enough in a long time. His eyes were glassy, and he barely moved when he realised they were standing at his bedside. He did move, though.

“Who are you?” he asked between laboured breaths and a cough that shook his body. He seemed to be trying to look around at them in alarm, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Are…are you human? Are you like the woman who hurt me?”

“We don’t know who hurt you,” Kirinz said softly. “We are human, yes.”

“Help me,” the Frog Prince pleaded in his gale-swept voice. “Take what you want, I’ll give you anything, but help me, please. Help…help me.”

‘ _What_ _’s going on?_ ’ Ren asked, discomfort squirming through him. ‘ _This isn_ _’t…I mean, this isn’t…it, right?_ ’

‘ _I imagine it is. The tower told you to take his legs. That_ _’s what you’re here to do. It couldn’t really be simpler: I doubt he could fight back._ ’

Ren didn’t like that answer: searching for help, he tried to catch Ryhad’s eye, but Ryhad only looked at him, and shrugged.

“You,” the Frog Prince said, coughing, and Ren realised with horror that he was looking at him. “You have…you have the Flower Fairy’s scent on you. Can’t you tell her to come to me? No one comes. Can’t you help me?”

His voice split, violently, into a coughing fit. Without realising he was doing it, Ren took a step back, and another. He didn’t want to be here anymore.

“Are you the Frog Prince?” Eïen asked, his voice like the chime of a bell compared to the rustling of hay that came out with the frog’s every word.

“I…I am.”

Perhaps he might have said more: perhaps he meant to. He didn’t get the chance. Eïen made a small gesture with his fingers over the Frog Prince’s mouth, and he choked: for a moment that was suspended in time, seared into Ren’s eyes, the frog made a strangled noise and his eyeballs bulged out. Then it was over, Eïen dropped his hand, and — as if he had been waiting for it — Ryhad cut off the Frog Prince’s legs. They didn’t bleed. It was very clean.

“Ding dong! You have killed the Frog Prince. The world hates you now! You have one hour to complete the game.”

The ballroom began to shake. Everyone reacted in an instant: still holding the Frog Prince’s legs in one arm, Ryhad reached out to grab Ren’s hand and ran for the door they’d come in by. The others did the same, and within moments of entering the ice corridor, they all heard the unmistakable twangs and crashes of ice breaking. It followed them into the corridor: as they sprinted back to the stairs, Ren saw cracks chasing them along the walls, and the entire underground palace shook, screaming in agony now its prince was dead. It filled Ren’s ears and he almost didn’t notice that the corridor was a slightly different shape to the way it had been when they’d first walked down it. But he did notice, and he didn’t like what that implied.

‘ _Is this the way we came?_ ’ he asked as they dashed around another turning in the continuous effort to outrun the cracks he could already hear destroying the corridor behind them.

‘ _No. I think we can expect more changes when we surface._ ’

‘ _Liking the use of the word_ _“when”._ ’

‘ _Oh, you_ _’ll get out: you’re lucky enough for that_.’ Caïn’s opinion seemed to be that there was no question about the matter, and that really did help.

Seeing the door again helped more, though. They had left it open and this one was closed, but Ryhad seemed certain about it: he slammed it open and pushed Ren in first. Ren was more than happy with that: without losing any speed, he ran up the dark, damp staircase, trying desperately not to slip because these stairs, like the ones they’d come down on, were slippery. Quakes came irregularly, though, and more than once he almost fell, and had to catch himself with his hands before pushing off and running again, Caïn scampering up the stairs beside him. There was no light. That scared him, because no light meant the man-hole was probably closed like the door had been.

Heaving for breath, he ran, pushing his muscles far past what they were comfortable with. The others were close behind him, but even their footsteps were slowly being drowned out as the quakes came closer and louder and with less time in between: by the time he did reach the man-hole, the quakes were almost constant.

“It’s shut!” he said pointlessly (of course they all knew), and moved to the side when he heard the person behind him run to his level so they could push together. There was no light at all: he only knew it was Kirinz through the tone of her voice as she grunted in effort, helping him lift the thick stone cover that had been significantly easier to lift from the other side. It creaked and scraped, but eventually a ring of light became visible around the outside, and with Eïen’s added help, they managed to get it away from the entrance and climb out of the stairway. Ryhad was the last: once he was out, they could all see how close the cracks had been to them, now they were in the light.

But not the same light they’d left. This wasn’t bright and oppressively sunny: this was moonlight, only just enough for them to see by. Legs shaking from the run up the stairs, Ren asked, “Did the way back to the Mermaid Princess change too?”

“I don’t know.”

All of them looked at Ryhad in surprise; for his part, he was staring at a nondescript section of ground with murder in his eyes. “I can’t find her. The direction keeps changing.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Kirinz said sadly, checking her watch. “We’ve got forty-nine minutes left. If we run, we can make it back to the shore in that time.” She ignored Ren’s look of total disbelief. “Does anyone have any props or abilities that will give us another chance?”

“I don’t think going back will work,” Ren said, shaking his head. “Everything’s different. I think the way back will have changed too: that’s why we were allowed to use Ryhad’s ability on the way here, because it didn’t matter. Getting back is the hard part.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” she asked him: not as a challenge, but as a genuine question. Beside her, Eïen seemed to be surveying the premises as if that would help anything, and Ryhad was evidently still trying to make his ability work, holding the Frog Prince’s legs under one arm. And Ren really had no idea what to do. The air was as stuffy as it had been during the day, despite the lack of sun, and the bushes around them looked sharper than before, all the rose-hips gone. Spores still floated in the air, but so did noise: in the distance, he could hear something that sounded distinctly like an angry mob.

‘ _Ca_ _ïn…_ ’

‘ _It_ _’s possible you’ve already run yourselves into a dead end, but I don’t think you have. I think there’s a solution left._ ’

‘ _What, then?_ ’

‘ _That_ _’s the part I don’t know._ ’

Making a sound of deep frustration, Ren began to stamp in place, feeling each second tick by like it was a physical blow. He couldn’t breathe properly. It was because of the spores: they seemed to have congregated around the group as if seeking human warmth, and Ren was about to push some of them away from him when he remembered the Moon Rabbit’s game. He stopped.

‘ _Ca_ _ïn…?_ ’

‘ _Yes?_ ’

‘ _The tower said the world hated us. That meant the tower world, didn_ _’t it?_ ’

‘ _It did._ ’

‘ _Does that include the spores?_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t believe so,_ ’ Caïn said in a pleased voice.

That was enough: cupping a collection of spores in his hands, Ren said to them, “Can you take us to the Mermaid Princess? Even just showing us the way is fine — please!”

The other three watched him in dawning realisation. When the spores began to move in a small but deceptively quick cloud, they all ran after it.

The bushes were sharper than they had been during the ‘day’. Where there had been thorns, now there were spines like razor blades, slitting open fabric and flesh indiscriminately. Ren carried Caïn, wincing at each cut, and could have cried in relief when the bushes pulled back and they were left to run down a grassy hill towards a different section of marsh to the one they’d first seen. The cloud of spores led them in a zig-zag of a path, and though they tried to stick to it, it became difficult when the earth began to crumble underneath them. Solid patches would dissolve into deep pools of dark water, and when Ren tripped and almost fell in one, it was only by the grace of Ryhad catching him that he wasn’t dragged under. Wriggling, writhing somethings had coiled around his leg before Ryhad had lifted him out, and he felt sure that the pools were deeper than they looked. With his heart in his mouth and every limb shaking, he ran as quickly as he physically could after that, but the marshes were wider than before, and there was a long way to go. It was Eïen who tripped next: Ren only saw because they were following different, roughly-parallel paths, and he simply wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, because it was so quiet. There was no warning roar or splash or anything: only a number of black tendrils reaching up from black water, wrapping around his calf and tightening in an instant. There was a millisecond in which to act, and Eïen did: with those same crystal daggers he had used in the casino, he slashed down at his own leg without hesitation, and blood mixed with the water.

Only when they were finally on solid ground did Ren realise that Eïen had sliced a good portion of his own flesh off. They were all in bad shape, and Kirinz seemed to want to help him, but he waved her away with tension in his jaw and shoulders. The cloud of spores wasn’t waiting for them: they had to keep running.

For a few, blissful minutes after that, nothing happened. The wind rushed through the grass of the farmland they ran over, and if Ren focused on the rhythm of his feet on the earth, he found he didn’t think about the pain so much. A stream of stars brushed over the night sky glowed down at them hatefully, and always in the background there was the sound of people coming, but for a brief time, there was respite.

All too soon, it broke. It started innocuously: they were sprinting over fields and unharvested crops, and the next thing Ren knew, there was an explosion. He yelled, but didn’t stop running; the next second, there was another one, closer. They were being targeted, and it was only on the third explosion that Ren realised that it was the stars themselves that were falling from the sky. All shine and stardust, they sped down with a sound like synths, and when they hit the earth, they exploded into glowing shrapnel — a shard of this, Ren saw with horror, shot through Ryhad’s thigh and made him stumble, but he kept running, like the rest of them. Stopping wasn’t an option. The stars were falling in greater numbers. Soon, it was a shower, and so many shards of shrapnel sliced up the air that there was no way to dodge. One could only run, and bear it.

“Ding dong! Thirty minutes remain.”

Gasping for breath and bleeding from too many wounds to count, they made it onto the dunes. The sand was grey under the moonlight, but was dyed black under their blood. Something more would come, they knew. The cloud of spores had been ripped apart in the explosions, but some still remained, leading them down to the shore. When they crested the highest dune, they saw what lay between them and the Mermaid Princess. She was there, swimming lazily in the sea, but she wasn’t the only thing: emerging from the dark water were figures, easily taller than any normal human, with elongated limbs and hunched backs and eyes that glowed eerie white in the night.

“Our prince,” they called, “our prince; what have they done to you?”

They were vengeful ghosts, shadowy shapes against the calm waters of a sea at night, and more and more were surfacing all down the shoreline: by the time Ren stepped foot onto the stones, there were easily thirty all along the beach, at a glance. He activated Divine Retribution, the others got their own weapons out, and as one force they tried to buy Ryhad enough time to get the legs to the Mermaid Princess, who was now watching them with mild interest. This was a well-meant plan. It was crushed immediately.

Eïen made no sound when the first sea ghoul lifted a long, tentacle-like arm and whipped it across his face, leaving a deep gash of black blood. He only faltered, one hand to his ruined eye, and tried to withstand the next hit. Ren didn’t see how he did it: by that time the other ghouls had found their targets, and they didn’t waste time. With impersonal gravity to their every moment (until the lightning-fast whip of their limbs), they lumbered forwards: on her first blow, Kirinz’s kneecap was shattered; on his, Ryhad narrowly missed losing the arm that held the Frog Prince’s legs, and the ghoul’s lashing blow cut him down to the bone. Ren tried to shoot his chains through the ghoul nearest to him, but the chains went right through, and he was left defenceless when a whip came slicing across his back, ripping open the flesh. He hissed, unable to move for a moment. That was all the ghouls needed. They were swarming around the human players, looming assailants in shadows, and only Caïn’s warning alerted Ren to the one behind him that sent a whip straight for his throat.

It never connected. One second Ren was on the rocky beach, the next he was knee-deep in water, heart racing, watching the fight from a distance. Confusion splintered him: he couldn’t think.

The mermaid said, “Don’t move, okay? Let’s just wait and watch.”

He stared at her; she stared back.

“You told me about my Snegurka,” she said, as if it was obvious. “You’re an okay human. You’re not like the ones we made into banana wine. And your little doggy likes you: if he likes you, you’ll live to see it all happen. So it’s okay if I save you here, you know? You were going to live anyway. The tower won’t mind.”

Ren couldn’t process any of what she was saying. There was a scream, and he jerked his head back to fight: he could barely see the others through the press of ghouls.

‘ _Ren, use the Cheshire Cat_ _’s ears!_ ’

Of course: if he used Cheshire Cat’s Pas De Deux then Ryhad would just have to hand over the legs and they’d be fine. With his eyes glued to the fight, he rummaged around, and picked up the cat ear headband: he was about to recite the activation line when the words died on his lips.

In a gap in the swarm of ghouls, under the dim wash of moonlight, he saw Ryhad cut one of the ghoul’s arms off. It was what he’d been doing for the past twenty seconds Ren had been standing here: it was nothing notable. Nothing new, until he turned to defend himself again from a blow that had been aimed at the back of his head, and he left himself open to a ghoul that had, until that point, been occupied with Kirinz. It turned, its glowing eyes lowered to Ryhad: almost curiously, it lifted its arm up, and — like Ren had done with his chains, countless times — it shot it straight through Ryhad’s chest.

This was back on the beach, and it was dark: Ren couldn’t see his expression. He only saw how he stumbled, how he was completely unprepared for the other three ghouls descending upon him.

‘ _Activate it, Ren!_ ’

Like a doll pulled only by Caïn’s words, he did. Between one blink and the next, he was transported to the blood-soaked stones where Ryhad had stood, and, because Caïn ordered him to, he created a cage of chains above his head to withstand the impact of four ghoul’s whips. He had no idea if Ryhad would be able to hand over the Frog Prince’s legs or not: his mind wasn’t working properly, he couldn’t think, and he barely even felt respite when, on a beach infested by ghouls out for his blood, he heard the tower speak.

“Ding dong! The Mermaid Princess has received the Frog Prince’s legs. At 8:03 on March 20th, 2018, Russia District 43 official players Ren Delacroix and Ryhad Dalisirene, Russia District 1 official player Kirinz Lair, and Russia District 1 reserve player Eïen Sanastar have successfully cleared the fifth floor and won the reward ‘Shout of the Sea’.”

The beach disappeared; replacing it was misty morning light on a deserted motorway. Ren looked up and saw Ryhad’s body lying some metres from him, and he ran to it, his body screaming with pain but his mind a blank. The tower had altered their physiology: it shouldn’t be impossible to survive this, he told himself, but looking over Ryhad’s torso he saw the raw, ripped flesh gorged on blood that pooled around him, and he was terrified. His hands were shaking. He didn’t know what to do. Stop the bleeding — yes, but how? This wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t just the blow that had torn through flesh and organ and bone alike: it was the gash to his arm, the star shard that had speared through his thigh, all the thorns. It was everything and Ren didn’t know what to do to make it better. He couldn’t think. There was a low whine coming from his mouth, breaking up into a dry sob as he looked over Ryhad’s wounds and saw absolutely nothing he could do. Working on its own, his brain remembered that he had a tooth plaster prop that would fill up anything — would that work? Should he—

‘ _No. Absolutely not. Calm down: he_ _’s still alive and he won’t die that easily,_ ’ Caïn said, coming closer. ‘ _You have that enchanted liquorice and Sleeping Beauty_ _’s needle and thread: get him to eat the liquorice to raise his energy and use the thread to sew up what wounds you can. I’m going to go and find Norhan._ ’

When Caïn ran down the motorway, there was no one left. The wind blew, but there were no birds, no animals, no cars, no people. There was just his unsteady, broken breathing, and his weak voice when he said, “C-come on…please eat it,” because he couldn’t get Ryhad to swallow the liquorice. It wasn’t a food made for unconscious people. Vaguely, he remembered once hearing that you weren’t supposed to make an unconscious person swallow anything, so he abandoned the idea of forcing it down, and moved over to the sewing. At least he could do that. At least he knew how to do that.

He’d managed to sew up the gash in Ryhad’s shoulder when Ryhad’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked dazed, but Ren jumped on it. Speaking loudly and making sure he was always in sight, he made Ryhad eat one stick of the liquorice, but that was as far as he got before he fell unconscious again. Ren had no idea if it would help. He had no idea if Ryhad would be able to digest it in this state, or if it needed to be digested to take effect. He had no idea what humans were able to survive nowadays. He had no idea how much of Ryhad’s spine had been destroyed, and didn’t want to look. All he could really do was sew, and wait.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard his name. He’d been forcing himself not to look at his watch, because the minutes stretched out too far, but now he looked up from his blood-soaked hands and felt his limbs go weak with relief at the sight of Norhan running after Caïn, coming towards them.

“He’s still alive,” he heard himself say, “but we’re going to need all the sand you have left.”

 

 

In the end, it took three hours until Ryhad woke up and stayed awake. They did, in fact, have to use all the sand Norhan had left, and they had to move Ryhad back to the shelter Norhan and Cade had been using during their wait. He was scarily pale and obviously weakened, but once conscious, he managed to make a comment about how they’d have to go and get new towels for Ren _again_ now that their current ones were apparently soaked with his blood. Ren told him to apologise for it and he refused. That didn’t seem like something someone close to death would say, so Ren finally let himself relax. In the corner, Cade took her duty of holding Caïn very seriously and Norhan didn’t once try to separate them, so he assumed everything was fine there, too.

He hoped. It probably was, anyway. Either way, now that Ryhad’s condition was probably stable, he decided he needed some time to calm down. He announced that he was going to go and find a body of water to get clean in, and Norhan laughingly waved him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cupid: hello my darlings ♥️  
> cupid: i'm sure you're wondering why i'm here  
> cupid: the answer is of course that a certain someone's nerves couldn't take all this talk of injuries inflicted in the vicinity of his husband so he had to sit it out and a different certain someone went to talk sense into him and so i was brought on as the designated adult  
> cupid: and now we get to have some fun!  
> cupid: what i'm going to do to start is share some gossip with all my lovely little viewers ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ i've got PLENTY of tower gossip for you all, and this is really very bad of me but i just can't wait to tell all of you! it's our little secret, okay? ♥️ now go and get yourself a nice hot beverage, because here's ♥️ the motherfucking ♥️ tea  
> mirenwe: every day i spend with you people brings me closer to a breakdown


	28. (laura voice) kiss time!! but only kiss if you’re ready to face the consequences!!

A funny thing happened in the following weeks.

It was preceded by several quite dull things: Ryhad’s wounds had to be given a chance to heal before he could move, and once he was able to, they had to drive up to Moscow, like Norhan and Vike had agreed. Once there, Ryhad found he could finally use his ability to track her, Einierre and Acqen, so there was a second reunion and much rejoicing — happily ever after, for about a week. It was then that Vike decided she wanted to attack the sixth floor with Einierre and Norhan, who would both be attacking the fifth, and Cade, who would be attacking the fourth. This was all very satisfactory: it was beyond foolhardy for all of them to go, and it made sense to exclude Ren and Ryhad, who had recently been mauled by the tower, and Acqen, who said he wasn’t interested and then went back to trying to get Ren to go to instances with him. So it was decided, and they prepared themselves, and went out to the black tower that loomed over Moscow, and they were not able to attack the tower.

That didn’t feel very fair. The tower had repeatedly asked them to attack it, so it was a bit of a kick in the teeth to be rejected like this, but no matter how many times they tried, it wouldn’t let them in. It was only when, by chance, Vike stepped back, that the other three were swallowed up into the tower after all.

The remaining four stared up at the shadowy underside of the black tower. One by one, they each tried to attack it, and were unable to.

The sixth floor was closed. That was the obvious explanation. While they waited for the others to clear the floor, they located Eïen’s group and, complimenting him on his nice new eyepatch, Ren persuaded him to try too. Neither he, Kirinz, nor Aävardan could attack the tower. When the others did return from the tower, Einierre gallantly tried to attack it again right away, just to see, and was similarly unable to.

So there it was, plain as the towers that hung over their world. They could not attack the sixth floor. With precious little else to do, they settled into life in Moscow.

 

 

It was in early May that Ren was finally persuaded to use Cupid’s lipstick. This was a communal effort weeks in the making: all seven of them took prop inventory fortnightly, so the lipstick’s existence had come out early on, but Ren had refused to have anything to do with it. Everyone thought this was stupid, and he only got through three inventory-takings before all the moralising looks and teasing from Einierre became too much and he caved.

“I’m _not_ going to enjoy this,” he said vehemently, coming back down the stairs with the lipstick gripped in his hand to join the others in the large sitting room of the giant house they’d appropriated as their own. The main space was wide and open from one side of the house to the other, and it was covered with useless or unwanted props, various items of clothing and books they’d raided from a library, attempts and knitting and sewing because they had to pass the time somehow, and a fairly wide selection of random board games Acqen translated for them (invariably twisting the rules in his favour, Caïn said, but no one was allowed to know Caïn could speak, so Acqen was left to cheat unimpeded). Ren picked his way over the carpets and came to curl up on the leather armchair next to the giant marble mantelpiece. Beside him, on another armchair, was Acqen, lounging with one leg propped up on an armrest and the other hanging down; backed up against the windows that looked out onto the residential street outside was a sofa with a very attractive blanket thrown over it that was now being sat on by Ryhad. Norhan sat beside him, keeping an eye on his sister as she attempted to fold small paper stars on the carpet. Opposite them, on a sofa that clashed with the entire feel of the room (because they’d hauled it in from another one) were Einierre and Vike, Caïn sleeping on her lap. Having learnt from his mistakes, Ren had come clean about Caïn’s identity straight away, and Vike had taken to him. He seemed to be asleep right now, which saved him watching the inevitable awkwardness that was about to occur.

Holding a leg to her chest and rocking back and forth in anticipation, Einierre gave Ren a kind look he didn’t trust one bit. “It’s only kissing, you know,” she said sweetly. “It doesn’t say you have to use tongue.”

“I wasn’t going to use tongue.”

“Well, I guess we see the extent of your devotion to the cause, then.”

“I’m not devoted to it and I don’t want to be! That’s the point here!”

“Oh come on, Ren, it’s not that big of a deal,” Norhan said with an air of joking condescension. “Don’t be a coward.”

“Yeah, don’t be a coward,” Acqen said in very broken French with a quick glance at Vike; she nodded to let him know he’d got it right, and he sunk into a state of evident satisfaction.

“I’m not being a coward,” Ren said, looking down at the lipstick in his hand. “I’m being a normal human being.”

“Normal human beings don’t sweat it over a little kiss,” Einierre pointed out.

“Some do!”

“Pretty sure it’s just you,” Norhan said, still with that smug look to him.

Spitefully, Ren glared at him and said, “Well, I guess considering what _you_ did, this is nothing, huh.”

Horror flashed across Norhan’s face before he managed to hide it, and they all saw Einierre’s mischief alarms go off. Ryhad started to take a great deal of interest in his book and looked like he would have left the room if that wouldn’t have been intensely suspicious.

“What did he do, then?” Einierre asked gleefully while Acqen demanded a translation of the events from Vike.

Ren shot Norhan a smile. “Go on. Or are you the coward here?”

“You little brat,” Norhan said, a grin rising on his lips. “I’m not saying anything while my little sister’s in the room.”

“Oh, that’s an easy fix. Cade, come here,” Einierre said, beckoning to the little girl she’d declared her daughter the first time they’d met. Cade put down her paper stars and climbed up onto Einierre’s lap, dutifully allowing her ears to be covered — as if it would matter: she still didn’t speak a word of French.

Norhan looked betrayed, but when Cade picked up on that and began to look distressed, he shook his head and smiled and said, “This isn’t playing fair.”

“You’re making it worse,” Ryhad said through what sounded like gritted teeth, still not looking up from his book. “Stop dragging it out: just tell them.”

Norhan did as he was told. It wasn’t without shame, but it wasn’t with much shame, and he seemed to enjoy Einierre’s reaction: like the dawning sun, an expression of unbridled delight rose on her face. When Vike had got over her shock and given into Acqen’s pestering to translate for him, he burst out laughing, and that set Einierre off too.

“I can’t believe you _did_ that,” she said rapturously, looking back and forth between Norhan, who’d decided to enjoy the joke, and Ryhad, who was doing a very good impression of someone who hadn’t heard any of the past minute or so. “You let the tower be your wingman.”

Norhan shared her grin. “Oh, so you’re too good to fuck for the tower’s pleasure? Too dignified for that?”

“Maybe I am!”

“I bet you’re not.”

“Bet I am. Good think you didn’t choose Ren, though: I’d have had to do the big sisterly thing and challenge you to a duel for deflowering him.”

“Einierre, shut up!”

“I’m looking out for you!”

“She cares about you a lot,” Vike said wisely. Sitting back against the pillows now Acqen had had his fun, she gently tapped Cade’s shoulder to let her know she could go back to her paper stars, and looked at her girlfriend fondly. “And you really shouldn’t tease him that much: I’m positive that if you’d been given that prop you’d have used it too. And I’m not saying that’s a _bad_ thing, of course; you were both quite right to use it!” she reassured Norhan and Ryhad. “I’m only saying that you can’t really take the moral high ground here when… _you_ know.”

There was a very faint blush on the tops of Vike’s cheeks; seeing it, Einierre’s smile turned into something more predatory and she leaned closer, saying something in English.

Ren’s plan had entirely backfired on him. With his face in his hands, he tried to ignore what was going on under the high ceiling of the living room, and he tried even harder when Einierre began yelling at Acqen in a way that seemed pointed.

Caïn rejected his attempts at ignorance. ‘ _She_ _’s saying that she would have liked very much to take advantage of the stamina the tower’s given you all if there hadn’t been a third wheel._ ’

‘ _Thanks,_ ’ Ren said in a voice that sounded dead even inside his mind. ‘ _I really wanted to know that._ ’

‘ _I live to serve. Now he_ _’s telling her that if he can’t get any then no one can, and— oh._ ’

The room had suddenly erupted in all four Anglophone adults yelling no at Acqen, who began to cackle. Confused, Ren looked up from his hands to see emotions varying from scandalised (Vike) to scathing (the other three). He looked between them in a perplexed way, and had to make a body-wide effort not to react when Caïn considerately told him, ‘ _Acqen remarked that if the other four have already done so, you and he ought to pair up too._ ’

In a voice that managed not to be strangled, he asked, “Uh, what…what happened?”

“You don’t need to know,” Ryhad said firmly, finally giving up on the book charade. The others concurred: with one last glance at Acqen (who had stopped cackling and was watching him in an amused way), Ren looked back down at his hands.

“Well!” he said in a brittle voice. “This has been a disaster.”

“Let’s just do the lipstick,” Norhan said. “We can’t put it off forever.”

And so they were back to this mess. Ren had been clenching the lipstick so hard it had left an imprint of the brand name (an unimaginative _Cupid Cosmetics_ ) in his palm. “I really hate this,” he said.

“You know, I think it makes it worse if you keep talking about it like that,” Norhan said cheerfully. “Try and be positive.”

“Let’s just put the lipstick on first,” Vike suggested helpfully, putting Caïn down on the carpet so she could lean across Acqen and look at the offending item. Uncapping it, she turned it over in her hand and said, “It looks normal enough. Come here.”

Obediently, Ren leaned over and let her apply it. It was almost exactly like lip salve, but pastier, and with a distinct scent of roses.

“Now put your lips together, like this,” Vike said, and seemed about to demonstrate until Einierre tapped her on the arm and reminded her that this wasn’t a makeover, and the instructions didn’t say that it had to look flawless. Ren put his lips together anyway (he’d seen it done enough to know that much) and felt ill at ease. For a moment or two, there was silence but for the crumpling of paper as Cade folded up more little stars. She was apparently trying to make an entire galaxy.

“Okay, someone’s got to start,” Norhan said, getting up off the sofa and stretching. “You don’t mind if it’s me, right, kitten?”

“I _told_ you never to call anyone that,” Ren said, stifling laughter. That seemed to have been the desired response, because Norhan came over and ruffled his hair.

“I’ll keep it for special occasions only. Now just reassure me: this isn’t your first kiss, is it?”

“It’s not!”

Norhan turned to Ryhad and said, “Can we get your shell out? I want to be real sure about this.”

Ryhad gave him a wry look and did not get out Shout of the Sea (a shell much like Whisper of the Sea but which listened to speech and alerted the user of lies in real time). Ren had a millisecond in which to feel warmth towards the one person who cared about his dignity, until Einierre piped up with, “It’s definitely not his first: we made a huge deal of that when it happened.”

“Good to know,” Norhan said while Ren groaned and Vike translated (hopefully sparingly) for the ever-demanding Acqen. Then Norhan bent a little to be at Ren’s height, and suddenly that was all he could focus on — even more so when Norhan pushed back some of his hair for him.

“Don’t even think about it, okay? Just stay like that, but close your eyes.”

Ren didn’t know why they had to do this in front of an audience but he’d clearly stalled for too long anyway, so he did close his eyes.

As promised, it was very little, after all that fuss. Just lips pressed to lips, and when the pressure left, he opened his eyes to see Norhan move away.

“Did that work?”

“I don’t— oh.” Ren blinked at nothing in particular, and then began to recite as if the words had a life of their own and had decided to throw themselves off his tongue like lemmings off a cliff.

 

[Ability: Tooth and Claw]

[Owner: Norhan Eppalai (stowaway)]

[Type: Genotype]

[Function: Once activated, the user transforms into a wolf (height: 1.60m; length: 2.5m). All thought processes remain intact during this time. Claws and fangs are reinforced and functionally unbreakable.]

[Level: 7]

[Restrictions: Can be maintained without risk for a maximum of 2 hours. A buffer time of 15 minutes applies. If used for longer than the maximum limits, temporary animalistic behaviours become apparent in original form. Cannot be used in conjunction with performance-enhancing props.]

[Remarks: It isn’t cannibalism if you’re a wolf! Such is the black tower’s decree.]

 

When the words stopped, everyone in the room was staring at him. In a low voice, Vike began to interpret what he’d said; taking a step back from Ren, Norhan put his hands on his hips and whistled.

“Can’t believe that actually worked.”

“But you just had to test it out anyway?” Einierre asked with a grin. “I ought to chase you out of our house with a rifle.”

Ren stepped in before they could do any more of whatever that was. “Does anyone know what the level part means?”

“Ren, what part of it is ambiguous?” asked Ryhad, who had apparently decided to join the conversation again just to be sardonic.

“I _mean_ , what kind of scale are we working on here?”

“I suppose we’ll just have to try everyone else and work it out from there, really,” Vike said thoughtfully. “I’d like to know what Genotype means, if I’m honest: do you think it’s called that because it changes his physical form? I didn’t realise the tower was so organised, though of course it’s very organised with all the props and everything, so I’m not sure why I didn’t see it coming. Do you think we’ve been levelling up, if there are levels? Or are they fixed? I guess we can’t know from a cross-sectional study.”

Stroking her girlfriend’s hair affectionately, Einierre didn’t respond to any of what she’d said, and instead pointed at Ryhad. “Do him next.”

“Einierre, what the fuck?”

“We don’t have the internet anymore and I’m dying for some instant entertainment.”

Ren looked over at Ryhad and asked, cautiously, “Do you want to know too?”

“I thought the idea was that everyone gets tested,” Ryhad said practically. If he felt anything else, Ren couldn’t see it apart from slight, very slight embarrassment in the curtness of his words.

So, refusing to be the object that everyone came to kiss like he was some statue that supposedly brought good luck, Ren got up, walked over Norhan who had been recruited by his sister into helping her with the stars, and stopped in front of Ryhad.

“Sorry about this,” he said, and leaned forwards for the same brief contact between lips. It was deceptively impersonal. When he pulled back, he purposefully didn’t look at Ryhad at all, and instead waited for the words to come. They did:

 

[Ability: Faster than a tracking device]

[Owner: Ryhad Dalisirene (official player)]

[Type: Special]

[Function: The user can know any living creature’s exact location and the way to them upon activation.]

[Level: 4]

[Restrictions: The target’s name must be known to activate and the target must be within a 50km radius of the user. A buffer time of 20 minutes applies.]

[Remarks: If they don’t call back, leave it!]

 

“I feel like that one was shorter,” Norhan remarked. “And what’s with that name?”

“Do you have a problem with my ability’s name?”

“I think it’s weird,” Norhan replied honestly, and got kicked for his trouble.

On the other side of the room, Einierre had taken over interpreting because Vike was looking pensive. Playing with part of her hair that was still silvery, under the not-insignificant new growth, she said, “I wonder if it’s ‘Special’ because it’s such a vague ability. Come to think of it, do you think mine would be Special or Genotype — because it’s technically my sense of smell, but it’s not really, too… Ren, could you check?”

More than happy to speed things up, Ren crossed the carpet (careful not to step on any paper stars) and stood in front of Vike before he realised that it would feel really, really weird to kiss her on the lips. She seemed to feel the same: they looked at each other in mutual consternation until Einierre popped her head into the picture and said, “You could try a kiss on the cheek.”

Everyone in the room collectively remembered that the prop instructions hadn’t specified lips at all.

“Einierre,” Ren asked in a stiff voice, “why didn’t you suggest that earlier?”

She snorted. “Why would I? Go on, kiss her.”

Behind them, Norhan laughed, and, eager to share her victory, Einierre told Acqen and he laughed too. Fuming mildly, Ren bent to kiss Vike’s cheek, and hoped out of spite that it wouldn’t work.

It did, though.

 

[Ability: Sniff out Danger]

[Owner: Vike Larle (stowaway)]

[Type: Atomic]

[Function: When activated, the user will catch a bitter scent in the presence of danger. The scent’s intensity is proportional to the danger.]

[Level: 2]

[Restrictions: 85% accurate. Cannot be used with a blocked nose.]

[Remarks: (sounds of sniffing)]

 

Desperate for the entire ordeal to be over, Ren ignored Vike’s musings on what ‘Atomic’ meant and turned around to ask Norhan to ask Cade if he could do it for her too. She consented graciously, and after a quick kiss on the cheek, her ability, too, was revealed.

 

[Ability: Wrapped around your little finger]

[Owner: Cade Eppalai (stowaway)]

[Type: Genotype]

[Function: The user can unravel part or all of their body into connected threads of 0.2mm in diameter.]

[Level: 2]

[Restrictions: The user cannot move the unravelled body part except to return it to its original state.]

[Remarks: I’m such a mess these days, I’m falling apart!]

 

It wasn’t even as if hers had been any great mystery to them, but it was worth trying anyway. Vike’s musings continued down the path of whether the siblings’ shared blood had anything to do with how their abilities were both Genotype, and Ren rounded on Einierre, who was curled up on the sofa and radiating smugness.

“I’m doing you too,” he said, reaching for her. “Come here.”

“I don’t even _have_ one,” she protested, laughingly trying to get out of his arms. “Don’t be gross!”

But she was, after all, smaller than him, and she couldn’t stop him pressing a kiss to her cheek too. To everyone’s surprise, he began to recite again.

 

[Ability: Bite Me]

[Owner: Einierre Luta (reserve)]

[Type: Special]

[Function: Taunting. When activated, any and all deliberate taunts from the user will be affected by the ability and consequently unnerve or anger the opponent.]

[Level: 1]

[Restrictions: 30% effectiveness for unnerving; 50% effectiveness for angering.]

[Remarks: Taunts related to the opponent’s mother seem to work best.]

 

“Oh, that’s nice,” Vike said in a pleased voice, leaning over to interpret for Acqen. “You’ve got one too after all.”

“It really fits you,” Norhan said with a badly-suppressed smirk, and Einierre, who up until that point had been staring at Ren in disbelief, gave him the finger.

“If you want to fight, wolf boy, name a time and a place.”

“Maybe I will, and we can see how your level one holds up against my seven.”

It looked for a second like they might really try something, for laughs, but they were interrupted by a firm, “Me!”

Everyone looked over at Acqen. Beside him, Vike smiled. “He says he wants to try too.”

Ren had to do his best to pretend he hadn’t been told Acqen’s earlier comment, but honestly, given the lack of personal space Acqen liked to inflict on him, he thought he’d probably be justified in looking a little hesitant. The others looked more than that, but Vike smiled again and said, “It’ll be fine! It’s just a kiss on the cheek.”

“Kiss!” Acqen agreed. “Kiss.”

Thoughtfully, Vike held Acqen’s head in place, just in case. It made him look terribly thwarted, but he didn’t actively protest or try to move, and Ren was willing to give credit where it was due. In this case ‘credit’ was a quick peck, and it was due on Acqen’s cheek. Apparently Cupid’s Lipstick wasn’t very stringent, because it accepted that.

 

[Ability: Ten-Faced]

[Owner: Acqen Utei (stowaway)]

[Type: Genotype]

[Function: Once activated, the user can take on the form and all related abilities of a person in their ‘store’. While activated, the user’s original identity cannot be discovered except by a power of causality of a higher magnitude than the ability.]

[Level: 9]

[Restrictions: Up to 10 people may be kept in the ‘store’. To add someone to the ‘store’, the user must obtain verbal consent. Props and prop permissions do not apply. If the user stays in a form different to their original form for a length of time exceeding 2 hours, they will lose access to their original form and every other form in the ‘store’.]

[Remarks: How many masks do you need to feel safe?]

 

Now used to the feeling, Ren was able to slow down the recitation so Vike could interpret properly, but it was mostly things they knew already. Acqen had already shown them half of his store, in what he called a teaser, and he had taken Norhan and Ren’s abilities to replace two of the abilities he didn’t like so much. Apparently the time limit was new to him. From the corner of his eye, Ren saw Norhan grumble and agree to pay up on the bet he’d had with Einierre over whether or not Acqen’s appearance was his original one or not.

“Level nine is quite a lot,” Vike said, and switched to English to talk to Acqen about it. His job done, Ren went back to his comfortable armchair and sank into its embrace, reaching down to pick up Caïn as a lap-warmer. Ryhad had joined the discussion and Ren watched them without a single regret that he couldn’t understand.

‘ _It_ _’s not very interesting anyway. They’re wondering what the level scaling is like, and they’re basically right in that anything above a five is notable and anything above an eight is rare. But you did sort of know that._ ’

‘ _We did,_ ’ Ren agreed. Acqen’s ability wasn’t one you saw every day.

He’d got quite comfortable in his chair with his fox and his lack of responsibilities by the time Vike said “Oh!” and looked over at him.

“We need to check you too! I completely forgot about that. Of course we have to do you too.”

That had, admittedly, been the main point of using the lipstick in the first place. Readily, Ren handed it over to Vike and told her she could keep it. She applied it, kissed him on the cheek, and, with a look of surprise Ren could empathise with, recited his ability conditions.

 

[Ability: God, shouldn’t this wait until the second date?]

[Owner: Ren Delacroix (official player)]

[Type: Genotype]

[Function: The user can revive from death with a buffer time of 5 seconds. No damage inflicted during the buffer time will affect the ability. Once revived, all previous wounds will be healed and all missing body parts reconstituted using the head as a base. If the head is destroyed, the base will default to the last remaining physical matter.]

[Level: 6]

[Restrictions: Can only be used 4 times a day. Ability must be activated before death.]

[Remarks: Don’t you think you’re dying too much? Treasure yourself a bit more]

 

Everyone was silent for a moment as they processed the fact that he did, in fact, have a limit.

“Well hey,” Norhan said, “at least you never died four times in one day, right? The closest you came was three with the Moon Rabbit.”

“Yeah,” Ren said, in the middle of a vivid recollection of the fourth death that had occurred during that game which he had still never told anyone but Caïn about, and the cavalier attitude with which he had almost killed himself again in the subsequent doll game. “Yeah, great.”

‘ _At least you know now,_ ’ Caïn said comfortingly. ‘ _And you didn_ _’t die, so wasn’t that good luck? Just like you. Let’s try to die less from now on._ ’

Ren felt very tired. He hadn’t actually slept in about thirty-six hours, but that was irrelevant these days. Sinking back into the armchair, he agreed to try his best on that point.

 

 

Occasionally, Eïen or Kirinz came to see them. Aävardan never came (because they and Acqen had apparently sworn to kill each other on sight after clearing the fifth floor together) but the others came — not on social visits, but to exchange information. Ren usually sat these meetings out because they were all conducted in English and the others relayed the information to him afterwards anyway. That was what he did when Eïen came to visit a few days after the kiss catastrophe. Passing him on the stairs, Ren waved and smiled, and continued his way down into the conservatory where he had promised to show Cade how to do cross-stitch.

About twenty minutes later, he heard Eïen being shown out, and Vike came into the conservatory. Reaching down to pat Caïn, she sat down on one of the recliners and said, “Well, we’ve got some news!”

“Is it interesting news or more tower lore?”

“Ren, tower lore _is_ interesting,” she said in a responsible voice, and laughed when he made a face. While he leaned down to show Cade where she’d gone wrong on her little row of stitches, she said, “Apparently he heard something from one of his contacts, about someone they found in northern India. This person appeared out of nowhere, which isn’t really very notable nowadays I suppose, but they had a countdown around their neck.”

Ren looked up. “A countdown?”

“Like numbers counting down, apparently. They claimed to be a returnee, whatever that is. They tried to kill someone, so they were killed, and we don’t know anything else. Eïen’s going to try and reach out to his other contacts to find out if they’ve seen anything like it, and Norhan said he’d try to go back to Ukraine, to find those people you stayed with, to ask them. Nobody really knows what’s going on, you know,” she said pleasantly.

All of her was pleasant: the soft smile in her eyes, the gentle curls to her hair, the sunlight pouring through the windows that made her nut-brown skin glow, and most of all her voice. She was calming just to be around.  Spring was in full bloom, and the conservatory was bright. Cade seemed to be having fun with her sewing adventures on the floor, or as much fun as she had with any of the things she did to pass the time while surrounded by languages she didn’t know. Caïn was napping on a footstool. It could have been any spring day, in any year Ren had ever lived, but of course the conversation undermined that impression.

“Do we know what they were returning from?” he asked.

“No: that’s the thing.” Leaning back against the wall, she said, “If they’d just returned from a game, why call themselves a returnee? Everyone’s played games by now: it shouldn’t be new to them. So that makes us think that they weren’t a normal player. We wondered if they weren’t returning from…well, from being spores, but that doesn’t seem very likely, does it? If the spores could return to humans, surely they’d have done it by now. I think most of us secretly think that they’re from a different world, but we don’t really want to say it, because that sounds mad.”

“All of this is mad, though.”

“It is!” She beamed. “It is. So maybe we’re all right, and they did come from a different world. That would make things very complicated, so I’m sort of hoping not, and it would be nice if the tower would let us clear the sixth floor so we can try to clear the seventh before it gets any _more_ complicated, but something tells me that the tower isn’t going to let us do that.”

“No,” Ren agreed, watching Cade’s hands. “No, I guess not.”

It was decided by the end of the day that Norhan, Cade and Ryhad would go back to Ukraine for a brief visit. Ren didn’t want to leave his sisters, and so wouldn’t, but Ryhad had been persuaded to go after Norhan had reminded him he was just kicking his feet around Moscow and would benefit from a change of air. They were persuaded to take Cupid’s lipstick too because Ren didn’t want it anymore and he figured Alderian would find it interesting: refusing the actual prop, they took a cutting of it in a little tin box that had once been used for lip salve, and made him keep the rest.

They left the next morning with the light. The same day, Ren was press-ganged into joining Acqen on an outing.

These happened sometimes. Acqen liked to go and wander, and he liked company while he did it, even though they couldn’t really talk. That didn’t bother him: he talked to himself, expecting nothing back from Ren, and of course received nothing, though Caïn made sure to interpret the most part of what he said. It was mostly boring. This particular walk started out with a long rant on how stupid and useless his cousin was for not getting the information about the returnee to him before it got to Eïen, and Ren told Caïn he could stop interpreting that.

‘ _You_ _’re right: it isn’t very interesting. He seems to view everything Eïen does as a personal attack, which is quite funny, but it does get old, doesn’t it?_ ’

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Ren said with feeling, following Acqen along the deserted streets.

It seemed as if they were heading towards a shopping centre they’d seen before. They did have to keep replenishing their clothes stock, almost as often as Ren insisted they go and find water to get clean in. He was making sure they maintained dental hygiene too: he was running out of toothbrushes, and was thinking he’d have to go and find a new airport sooner or later. Until then, he had Acqen’s company to enthral him.

‘ _It could be worse,_ ’ Caïn said philosophically when they entered the shopping centre. He trotted along by Ren’s feet. ‘ _At least this way we_ _’ve given your sister and Einierre some free time to themselves. I think it might be nice if we keep him away from the house for at least two hours._ ’

‘ _Yeah, I_ guess _… Is he still on about how his cousin let him down?_ ’

‘ _He_ _’s cycled through a few different topics, none of which I thought you’d care very much about. He spoke for a very long time about his opinion on something which I think is a film._ ’

‘ _Which one?_ ’

‘ _Something called Marvel._ ’

‘ _No, I don_ _’t care about that._ ’

‘ _He called Norhan a_ _‘hunk of man-meat’ at one point, if that’s of interest. I think he meant it as a compliment._ ’

Ren ignored that because he didn’t know what to say to it. Ever the obedient companion, he followed Acqen through the glass-fronted shops, lit up only by the sunlight that came through a massive skylight in the middle of the shopping centre. It was multi-storied: they started on the ground floor, and, from experiences with other shopping centres, Ren knew that they would be going through every shop, right up to the top. Acqen was easily bored and enjoyed boring others too, for the hell of it.

Slowly, they snaked their way through the shops. Acqen went into women’s clothes shops too, which Ren originally thought was a kind gesture that meant he’d pick something out for Vike, but it turned out to just be because he liked to hold clothes out in front of Ren and apparently reaffirm his opinion that Ren would look good in them. There was a mirth-filled running commentary, too, which Caïn interpreted and Ren had to pretend not to hear, because it irritated him more. Acqen did end up taking some of the clothes with him, and Ren swore to himself that he’d burn them if they were put anywhere near him.

‘ _I didn_ _’t realise you were so sensitive about it._ ’

‘ _I_ _’m_ not _sensitive about it! I don_ _’t like being made fun of, that’s all!_ ’

‘ _I_ _’m not sure he was making fun of you. I think he just acts like that about absolutely everyone and everything._ ’

‘ _Still bad._ ’

The shopping centre had been fairly well gutted of anything useful. Batteries and other survival equipment were mostly gone, as was anything that could be used as a weapon. Clothes and shoes were still in decent supply, and Acqen made Ren wait for half an hour while he searched for new boots in his size, muttering things to himself. It was during this escapade that they heard the unmistakable sound of someone else in the building. Immediately, Acqen went still, his usual petulant or smug expression wiped to dangerous neutrality. They both heard footsteps on the lower floor, and Acqen motioned for Ren to stand back as he put down the boot he’d been trying on and walked closer to the large open space in the middle of the building that allowed people to look down at different floors. Once at the guard-rail, he transformed into what Ren knew as his elastic body, and shot a hand down onto the ground floor, shattering the tiles. There were some alarmed voices downstairs, and they grew more alarmed when Acqen threw down an explosive prop that shook the building, but didn’t destroy enough to destabilise their position on the first floor. There were more voices, and then more sounds of footsteps: the other people left in a hurry. Acqen watched the lower floor long after they heard a door slam shut; when he finally looked up again, in his original form, his expression took a moment to go back to normal. Then he walked forwards, sat down to try the boot on, and began to talk again.

Ren paused for a moment, and sat down. He hadn’t really liked the look in Acqen’s eyes there.

‘ _Well, I think we all knew he was dangerous and a little unhinged,_ ’ Caïn said, stretching against one of the low seats the shoe shop had provided customers with.

‘ _I don_ _’t think unhinged is a great word for—_ ’

‘ _Sorry to interrupt, but he_ _’s talking about something interesting again: do you want to hear?_ ’

Ren did.

‘ _It_ _’s not like we needed him anyway,_ ’ Caïn began to interpret. ‘ _I_ _’d have got there: he didn’t have to infringe on my fucking territory. You think Llorn wouldn’t have got back to me about that returnee bitch at some point? I was already_ there! _He didn_ _’t even put two and two together about all the animals being gone anyway. I just needed more proof: it’s obvious we’re not in the same world we were on originally, so why shouldn’t there be more worlds? I knew that! Me! Not him! Fuck him. I bet he hasn’t even got around to thinking that the tower probably wants us to figure out the multiple world thing before we can attack the sixth floor._ ’

Acqen put the boots down, leaning back on his elbows, and looked over at Ren, still talking. There was something melancholy sewn into the look on his face.

‘ _And then there_ _’s this guy. You didn’t even question the returnee thing when your sister told you, did you? God, you’re so clueless. How did you even make it this far? That’s what I want to know, because it wasn’t because of your two bodyguards, I’ll tell you that. It’s got something to do with that monster, but fuck if I know what it is yet. You’d better hope it carries you further, kid, because you’re not going to make it alone. Kids like you get swallowed up by bigger fish before they even know what’s happening. I’d tell you that, but then again, why would I? Then you’d stop trusting me so easily: that’s why no one’s made it clear to you before._ ’

Ren must have reacted. He wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions, and he saw the reaction register with Acqen — he said something, and Caïn didn’t interpret it. The shopping centre was silent. Ren was confused, and acted more confused on purpose: cocking his head to the side, he looked at Acqen questioningly.

Acqen looked at him for an uncomfortably long time. He was frowning, but after a minute it melted, he said something else, and then shrugged and waved a hand as if to tell Ren not to worry about it. Hopping up from the seat, he walked around a fake plant covered in a layer of dust, and walked out of the shop.

Ren watched him go. ‘ _What was that?_ ’

‘ _He accused you of understanding what he was saying. Obviously I couldn_ _’t interpret that immediately._ ’

‘ _Right, yeah_ _…_ ’ Ren tried to look normal, following Acqen into the next shoe shop. ‘ _Was he_ _…I mean, was he right? What he said._ ’

‘ _Which part? The answer is yes either way. He is totally correct about us being on a world different to the one you grew up on — the one you lived on until the earth went online — and he_ _’s totally correct about there being other worlds besides. Naturally you can’t tell him you know that, but I’d imagine his confidence will convince him he’s right anyway. He was wrong about the tower caring at all about whether you know that or not, though. But I feel like that wasn’t the part that was concerning you. He is also correct in thinking that you are in a position of weakness, yes. You trust too easily and too readily: everyone’s been telling you that from the start. If you continue to do so, that’s entirely up to you, and I doubt anything very bad will happen to you even if you do, but there it is._ ’

Ren bit his lip, and then had to stop so he could give a thumbs up when Acqen asked his opinion on a pair of boots. ‘ _Should I be worried about it?_ ’

‘ _I don_ _’t know. Do you want to be worried? Like I said, I don’t think it’ll be your downfall._ ’

Ren made a sound in an acknowledgement, but didn’t reply. He was having a hard enough time acting normal with someone who apparently looked down on him.

‘ _I thought we already knew he looked down on you. He looks down on everyone,_ ’ Caïn pointed out, and Ren had to admit that that was a fair point. Looking at it in that light, it was easier to stomach.

The rest of the excavation of the shopping centre dragged, though. Of course it dragged: Ren didn’t really want to be there, and he had to carry progressively more things that Acqen had taken a liking to. By the time they walked back, he was exhausted in that special way that only came from walking around many shops very slowly, and he swore internally that he would never go shopping with Acqen again. Acqen, oblivious to this, was complaining to himself about his hair colour, which apparently hadn’t been exactly what he’d wanted when he’d last dyed it.

 

 

Acqen’s general whining fermented into a full-blown mood by evening, and around eight o’clock he stormed into the large attic bedroom Vike and Einierre had taken as theirs to stand defiantly in the door and say something in English.

‘ _He says he_ _’s frustrated so he’s going to go and kill something. Einierre told him to make sure it’s a something and not a someone, and he said he can’t make any promises._ ’

In his nice new boots, Acqen stomped back down the stairs, and Vike, Einierre, and Ren watched him go. Einierre got up to close the door.

“We might even have a quiet evening now!” she said happily, coming back to the pile of pillows upon which they were playing a kind of poker because, in Vike’s words, Ren could benefit from the practise.

They were noble hopes, and ultimately dashed: Ren lost three times before they eventually decided to let it drop. As well as clothes, most looters hadn’t prioritised alcohol, and (from various expeditions) they’d collected a sizable wine cellar in the house which Ren was now watching Vike and Einierre drink. He wasn’t hot on wine, and let them have at it. It had been a while since the three of them had been able to spend time alone together. They’d done it at the start, of course, because the others had been considerate enough to give them space and force Acqen to give them space, but since then there hadn’t really been the opportunity. Now revelling in it, they talked a lot: about people and places they all knew, about shared memories — it was, at least in part, an attempt to scrape away the scar tissue that the tower had left, and to be what they’d once been again. But reality couldn’t be ignored totally: they spoke about their own experiences in getting to each other, too. Vike and Einierre had apparently had a mostly uneventful trip, if you didn’t count instances and tower floors as events.

“We didn’t even really meet that many people,” Vike said, looking down at her wine glass thoughtfully. “We had Huai Yue and her friends at the start, of course, and that was nice, because a lot of them spoke English so I wasn’t too out of the loop even though I’m _still_ not very good at Mandarin — and we had this whole plan going on, you know, to set up groups in as many major cities as we could. That was all Huai Yue: she’s one of those ‘big picture’ people. Business student, of course. But afterwards, it was just a lot of driving and staying in small villages, apart from those few scuffles Einierre was talking about. And meeting Acqen, I suppose.”

“I don’t think you can call that ‘meeting’,” Einierre opined. “He threw himself at us like that one part in the first Harry Potter where Malfoy’s like ‘hey what’s up let’s be friends right now’. Oh my god,” she said, something clearly dawning on her. “Is he Malfoy? Is he our Malfoy?”

“They’re both blond,” Ren offered.

“He bleaches it, though.”

Ren filled her glass up for her again, and decided to lie down on his stomach, one hand idly scratching behind Caïn’s ear. “Has he always been…like that?” he asked, looking up at the other two.

“What, blond?”

“I meant his personality.”

They looked at each other. “Yes,” Einierre said.

“It’s sort of…” Vike looked conflicted, like she always did when, out of the goodness of her heart, she had to advocate for someone no one else liked. “It’s a bit tricky. I shouldn’t really tell you this, so don’t tell him I told you—”

“He couldn’t anyway,” Einierre pointed out. “Language barrier.”

“Oh, that’s true. But still. He…well, he got drunk with us at one point, because we’ve been drinking rather a lot on this journey, there’s so little to do, and he basically told us everything about how his partner died in front of him on the first floor. And from what he said about them, it doesn’t sound like they were a very nice person to him at all, but he didn’t seem to realise that, he just thought it was normal, so—”

“So she took pity on him,” Einierre finished, putting her glass down so she could lean against Vike’s chest. “Like a sap. You’re a sap, babe.”

“I’m not a _sap_ …” Vike said, pouting like she only did when she’d had a bit to drink. Einierre leaned up to kiss her, and Ren recognised his cue to leave: picking Caïn up and away from his nap, he said goodnight, assured them that no, he really was tired, and they should just carry on without him, and left the room.

The house was quiet as he went downstairs. It could comfortably house seven, and now he was the only one outside of the attic, it was all gaping, unlit rooms with creaking floorboards and shadowy shapes because there was no point in lighting candles everywhere. Ren knew his way down. Carrying Caïn, he made his way to the room he’d staked out as his, put the fox on the bed, and went to light candles. It was a small room, filled with a lot of props, and sewing projects, and a number of those model dinosaurs made of a hundred tiny pieces that had to be put together very carefully, because he had to pass the time somehow. Shutting the door behind him, he sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling the silence ring in his ears.

His eyes lowered to the clutter on his floor, and he reached down to pick up Cupid’s lipstick. For a while, he only looked at it, rolling it over in his hand.

It was just an idea. Just a small idea that had been rolling around his mind like the lipstick case on his palm. It had been rolling ever since Acqen’s little outburst at the shopping centre, and, he figured, there was nothing to lose. Not really.

The lipstick cap clicked as it was removed, and it sounded louder than usual. So did the sound of its application. There was only the sound of the mattress squeaking when Ren turned around and, gently, kissed the fur of Caïn’s forehead.

Caïn opened his eyes, shining black looking up at Ren with no emotion at all. And Ren looked back, waiting. Seconds ticked by, and he didn’t feel anything. He let out a breath.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking: I just—”

And then, clattering like broken machinery in his throat, it came.

 

[Ability: Guide You Home]

[Owner: Caïn ??? (ǒ̷̜̅̃̈́̈́f̶̧̙̘̠̤̈́͘f̶̰̼̮͇̟̍̎̋i̶͓̫̹͛̅̔͠ç̶̨̧̟̽i̷̡͓̼̥͚̋͊͂͛̄ȁ̵̢͉͕̞̇̿̎l̴̡͈͙̔͑ ̵̡͕̱̦̱͌̾̈́̇p̴̝͖̆̏̔͝l̸̬̹̠͎͌̽̇̓̓a̷͕̅̉̿ẙ̷̢͕̩̼̤̕ẹ̵̢̙̪̼̏r̴̫̹̗̹͓̔̕)]

[Type: Special]

[Function: The user can bless any single living creature with good fortune. This is a vow: the user’s fate will be tied to that of the chosen creature until the effect wears off.]

[Level: 25]

[Restrictions: The definition of good fortune depends on the blessed individual. The effect will wear off automatically in the case of death of either party, but will otherwise last as long as the user desires.]

[Remarks: Let’s all be good.]

 

Ren didn’t move. The line of eye contact between him and Caïn was unbroken: neither blinked, or moved, or even seemed to breathe. Ren didn’t understand what had just happened. He was the one who had done it: he — led by the idle thought that Caïn had never really fit into the definitions of either player or monster, and spurred by Acqen’s lamentations on his trusting nature — had done it, but he felt stupid for it. Caïn couldn’t be a player: the tower had never called out his name. It was as simple as that. He couldn’t be a player. So what was this?

Caïn said nothing. Ren knew full well that he could hear his every thought, but he said nothing. Ren was the one who had to ask, “What does this mean?”

‘ _Doesn_ _’t it say in the prop instructions? Those are my ability conditions._ ’

‘ _Why do you have an ability?_ ’ Ren asked — silently now, but part of him wanted to scream. ‘ _You_ _’re not a player. The tower’s never called your name. You’re a tower monster._ ’

‘ _And yet I have an ability, evidently._ ’

‘ _Do monsters have abilities?_ ’

The brief hope he’d latched onto was crushed when Caïn said, ‘ _No. Only players._ ’

‘ _Then what the fuck is this?!_ ’ His face was twisting, he could feel it. ‘ _Why the fuck do you have one?! Why are you level_ twenty-five _— how does that make any sense?! You were the one who said even level nine is rare!_ ’

‘ _I did say that, and it_ _’s true._ ’

‘ _Then answer me! Explain what_ _’s going on! Tell me!_ ’

‘ _I can_ _’t. Not yet._ ’ His voice had, until that moment, been very quiet, and calm, and closed. Now something else had worked its way in there. ‘ _Ren, I_ _’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m surprised you worked it out, and you deserve credit for that. But I can’t tell you about it. I’ll tell you on the sixth floor: I was always going to tell you on the sixth floor. But please don’t ask me to say it now._ ’

Tension was strung through Ren’s body and he had to force himself to breathe, cut the string, and let himself relax. There was no point in getting angry. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was just a breach of trust. Again.

‘ _You know I have my own priorities, Ren. I have things I have to protect and many of them involve secrets. I couldn_ _’t tell you: this is far too big of a secret to expect you to go on without telling anyone else. I didn’t want to put that on you._ ’

‘ _Don_ _’t act like you did it for me._ ’

Caïn paused. ‘ _Mostly, it was not for you, no._ ’

A city without electricity, without running water, without cars, without most of its population, was dead. There was no background noise.

‘ _I am sorry. I_ _’m sorry I couldn’t tell you and I’m sorry this keeps happening. All I can tell you is that I will never knowingly hurt you. I will never lead you astray. I can’t._ ’

His words sounded genuine. They always did, it was just what he was like. He didn’t lie, at least. He was frank, and candid, and a good companion. He had never taken Ren down the wrong path, and he had always been invaluable support, every moment he was around.

He had secrets. That didn’t make him a traitor. Ren told himself that, running over this new information over and over again as if replaying a favourite section in a favourite song, wringing it dry of any meaning until he got used to it. He would get used to this too. He couldn’t be without Caïn, not anymore.

It was the sort of thing he knew everyone would yell at him for. He shouldn’t be so trusting, after all. Everyone told him so. He should take more of an interest in the implications of things that happened around him: if he didn’t care about this, or the tower lore, or anything but the world directly in his vicinity, then how could he ever be anything but clueless, like Acqen had said?

But he would always be like this, he realised. He didn’t have it in him to turn Caïn away, or force him to answer things he didn’t want to answer.

So Caïn had an ability. That was part of the world Ren lived in now. He — a clueless, overly trusting idiot — would not question it anymore, because Caïn didn’t want him to.

‘ _Don_ _’t tell anyone else. Please._ ’

“I won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jiirva: can't say i like this acqen man. cannot say it  
> cupid: you've got to admit he's got a good ass on him though ♥  
> jiirva: no i do not have to admit that  
> mirenwe: please don't say these things, cupid... (ó﹏ò｡)❁  
> cupid: hmmmm~~~? don't act so innocent: you liked all that kissing, didn't you? ♥♥  
> mirenwe: i didn't!! Σ(‘◉⌓◉’)  
> hosgard: look cupid one more word and i'm kicking you out  
> cupid: yeah~~? ♥ i bet you would too, a big strong guy like you. what else would you like to do to me, handsome? ♥  
> hosgard, scandalised: i am MARRIED


	29. it's time to wake up now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore

Norhan, Cade and Ryhad came back from Ukraine towards the end of May. Apparently Alderian hadn’t heard about returnees before and had been very interested to do so; he, like many, was leaning towards the conclusion that there might be separate worlds. It was, in his words, a small leap of logic from the reality where giant black towers had overtaken the Earth and were now forcing everyone into murderous games.

“If there are other worlds, they could have just sent the other seven billion people there. They didn’t have to turn them into spores,” Ren said, lying on a sofa and staring at the ceiling. There was a crack in it. He was trying to work out whether that had grown since they’d first moved into the house.

“Are you sure the tower didn’t just want to kill a whole lot of people?” Norhan asked, currently in the process of learning how to plait his sister’s ever-growing hair, with Vike’s help. He wasn’t very good at it, and Vike hadn’t yet lost her enthusiasm but a lesser woman might have.

“It didn’t kill them, though.”

“Maybe it needs them as spores.”

“For what?”

“Decoration.”

“It’s very morbid, but the tower monsters did seem to like to eat them,” Vike offered, guiding Norhan’s fingers in a last-ditch attempt. “Maybe that’s what they’re for. Sustenance, I mean.”

“Aren’t we still working from the basis that they could have gone to the hypothetical other worlds?” Norhan asked, making a muddle of his sister’s hair yet again. “Maybe they’re full up.”

‘ _See?_ ’ Caïn (curled up on Cade’s lap as a consolatory gift for what was happening to her hair) said. ‘ _I don_ _’t even have to explain anything these days: with enough time, you people work it out just fine for yourselves._ ’

‘ _You_ _’re on thin ice and don’t you fucking forget it._ ’

‘ _I will not forget._ ’

‘ _That_ _’s fine then._ ’

Vike had on an expression of mild despair as it dawned on her that Norhan was a hopeless case and she might have to give up on him, but she covered it up with a thoughtful hum. “I think the more interesting question is how the returnee came back here, if they were meant to go to a different world. And I’m sure they were meant to be, because we don’t seem to have any other returnees. Do you think the towers glitched? That’s a very endearing thing for them to do.”

“I don’t think endearing is the word I’d have used,” Ren said.

“Well, I did use it, and I’ll stand by i—”

“Ding dong!”

All of them went silent, still and stiff, eyes turned to the wide windows through which only the sky was visible; beyond the clouds outlined in silvery brush-strokes, they could feel the presence of the black tower as its cheerful, childlike voice boomed out over the city. With no players able to attack the sixth floor, it hadn’t spoken in some months. It was almost nostalgic to hear it.

“Version update notification,” the tower said proudly. “June 18th, 2018 — the Black Tower version 4.0 will come online. The Sleeping King has awoken! All players will please defeat him according to the new version rules. These are as follows.

“First: all zones that have not cleared the fifth floor will enter forced attack mode in 1 hour. This state will continue until at least one player from the zone has cleared the fifth floor, or until there are no players left. Forced attack mode will cease automatically when the new version comes online.

“Second: when the new version comes online, all players who have cleared the fifth floor are invited to attack the sixth floor in a group tower game.

“Ding dong! The new version will be launched on June 18th, 2018. Please look forward to it!”

The tower announcement repeated twice more, as was customary. Then, just as the echoes of it were fading away, a new voice spoke.

This was not the child’s voice the tower had always spoken with before. This was a man’s voice, weighed down by weariness.

“The Sleeping King has woken up,” he said. “Please defeat the Sleeping King.”

 

 

Later that day, the tower announced the introduction of two zones into forced attack mode: Central Asia and East Asia. That slotted well into the picture everyone had of the player rankings. Russia was well taken care of, China had Huai Yue and her set, Alderian was in Europe, and both the USA and Africa had players who had taken the third and fourth floors first, respectively. Presumably South Asia and the rest of the Americas had figured something out.

Acqen was annoyed that his pet theory about needing to discover the other worlds before they were allowed into the sixth floor had been proved wrong. He sulked magnificently all night, and everyone but Vike ignored him.

 

 

With the promise of the sixth floor hanging in front of them menacingly, they began to train. It wasn’t anything very structured: it mostly involved sorting through their props and working out what would be the most useful, and, hoping that they would be short, entering instances.

Unfortunately, the tower announcement had coincided with the stock of chewable toothbrushes entirely running out, and Ren decided he had to go and find some more, because after a certain degree of aimlessness one learns to latch onto any kind of occupation. The unfortunate part of this was that when he came out of the reality instance he had soloed with Caïn, everyone except Acqen was in the middle of their own games.

Ren still couldn’t drive. Einierre called it a biological incapacity but whether it was or wasn’t, the fact was that he had no means of getting to the closest airport, and had to explain to Acqen, by means of gestures and some random English words, what he wanted. Upon realising that this meant an outing and thus entertainment, Acqen perked up and took his hand to drag him outside.

And so it was that the two of them (and Caïn) ended up driving the twenty-five or so miles to Domodedovo Moscow Airport. Acqen must have been before, because he found his way easily, and even managed to swerve out of the way of a reality instance the second he felt it grabbing at the car. With that close call averted, they made it to the airport, and Acqen hopped out of the car cheerfully to take Ren’s hand and lead him inside.

This airport had not been left untouched. Windows were broken here and there, and when Caïn pointed them out, Ren could see the signs of inhabitation. There was a lack of dust, in places; some paths through the airport seemed to have been walked regularly and recently. He didn’t delude himself that Acqen hadn’t noticed the signs too, and if Acqen didn’t care enough to stop dragging him up immobile escalators, then he decided he wouldn’t worry about it either. Summer sun came through the massive windows, and when they did kick up dust, it fluttered in beams of light. There was no sound except for their footsteps and Acqen’s incessant ranting about things Caïn said weren’t very interesting.

Apparently chewable toothbrushes were an international standard, because when Acqen brought him to a first floor bathroom, there was a little dispenser of them. After emptying two such dispensers, he decided to leave it — he didn’t want to go overboard, and if they were going to attack the sixth floor, he didn’t know how long he’d have to prepare for. Anyway, he’d already filled his backpack. Signalling to Acqen that he was done, he allowed his hand to be taken, and they began to walk, Acqen launching himself back into a rant about someone who had annoyed him once, apparently. It was all set to be an uneventful walk back, until they heard a noise behind them, and in the time it took them turn around, they were being attacked by three other players.

In an instant, Ren had his chains up as a shield, but that meant all of nothing to the wave of fire that shot at him: he had to rely on his instincts to leap back and duck into a souvenir shop. The smell of burnt hair was in his nostrils but he couldn’t feel any pain. After a second to breathe, he called Acqen and got out a bubble prop, shooting it at the assailants. They were all occupied with Acqen, who — recognising the bubbles — changed into his elastic form and jumped out of the way so he wasn’t hit by them. The assailants were, all of them, and were visibly overtaken by brief but potent nausea.

It wouldn’t buy them much time. Ren called Acqen again, already running back to the escalators, but he couldn’t hear anyone following him: when he turned around, heart in his mouth, he saw Acqen standing in front of their attackers, in Norhan’s body. He looked over at Ren dismissively and said something Ren couldn’t understand, but the wave of his hand was unambiguous.

‘ _He says to go,_ ’ Caïn translated helpfully.

For a moment, Ren hesitated. Then something long and spiked shot at Acqen from the top of one of the shops, presumably from a fourth attacker, and Acqen transformed with a bestial snarl, and Ren decided he wanted none of that. Fighting other players wasn’t what he liked to do.

‘ _Is this right?_ ’ he asked as he ran down the escalator.

‘ _Logically? Yes. Morally? I have no idea. He_ _’ll kill them, you know._ ’

Ren knew. There was no other way this could end. Acqen had come back to the house covered in blood before: it wasn’t new, but that didn’t mean Ren liked it. Hiding under the overhang of the floor he’d just been on, he stood there, chains out, listening to the thumps and bangs and yells and roars of fighting going on above him. There was the crackle of fire, a howl of rage, and the building shook. Acqen must have changed form again: he began to shout angrily, because he never knew how to keep his mouth shut. In silence, Ren and Caïn listened to what was clearly vitriol being spat like acid over the first floor.

‘ _It_ _’s colourful,_ ’ Caïn said mildly. ‘ _I_ _’m not sure you’ll want to hear all of it. He just threatened to rip someone’s eyes and testicles out and make them eat it all._ ’

‘ _Jesus._ ’

Ren wasn’t sure what to feel. Conflict churned in his stomach like he’d eaten something bad, and he wanted to go up and drag Acqen out by the scruff of the neck, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough for that. He couldn’t speak enough Russian or English to convince him to leave, either. It was such a waste. Acqen was easily strong enough to get them both out of there without killing their attackers, but now—

He heard his name and jerked his head up just in time to see someone leaping down the escalators. It was a tall man, clearly using a prop or an ability to go faster, and he managed to reach the foot of the escalators before Acqen caught him. He was in a new form, a middle-aged man Ren distantly remembered as being capable of moving metal objects, and with startling agility he slammed into the other man’s back, punched the back of his neck, and, before the man had a chance to move, pinned him down onto the escalator face-first with one foot. The sides of the escalator hid them: Ren only saw Acqen’s cold eyes look down, and then he saw the metal buckle and bend, and begin to move, slowly. There was a muffled sound of terror as the escalator creaked into life, and met resistance. _Crunch-crunch-crunch_ went the sound of jagged metal eating into bone, and the muffled sound became louder; Ren could hear the man struggling, hitting the sides of the escalator with great bangs, as blood began to trickle around the side, damningly vivid against grey tiles. A thin missile shot down at Acqen, but he dodged it: it couldn’t have been well aimed. Without so much as a glance back at whoever had shot it, he frowned, and kicked downward — once, and then again, and then the escalator began to move faster. The blood spread. After a while, the sounds of struggling stopped.

Another missile shot past Acqen’s face. Transforming mid-step into his elastic body, he ran up the escalators again, and Ren lost sight of him.

Ren couldn’t move. He had stood there, and done nothing to stop what he had just seen.

‘ _You couldn_ _’t have, I think. Acqen wouldn’t have listened to you, and you couldn’t have stopped him. Come back out of the light._ ’

Caïn had bitten into the fabric of his jeans and was trying to drag him back but he felt hypnotised by the ever-spreading pool of blood. Wasn’t that stupid? He’d seen so much death by now. He’d killed, by now. It was just different in the real world, with real people, after months of peace.

‘ _Ren, come on: I can hear another one._ ’

He backed away, following Caïn’s instructions, but he was dazed, and he wasn’t in a fit state to meet the teenage boy who stepped out as if from thin air to jump at him.

‘ _Activate your ability!_ ’

It was a good call on Caïn’s part. Ren didn’t have the will to fight right now: with total acceptance, he let the teenage boy cut his throat.

 

 

He woke up to Caïn gently pawing at his cheek.

‘ _Wake up._ ’

Gasping for breath, he did. The back of his head was wet with his own blood but he was used to that by now. Looking around, his head spinning, he saw people to the side of him, near the wall behind the escalator, between two benches. Two people, he realised as his eyes became capable of focusing. Two people, and a lot of blood.

Acqen was talking: he was in his normal form, his voice low and dangerous. As Ren blinked, he realised with horror and a poisonous rise of bile in the back of his throat what he was seeing. Acqen was holding the teenage boy by the throat against the wall; the boy was crying silently, clearly unable to move from fear, or pain. Acqen had sliced through the corners of his mouth, up through his cheeks all the way to his ears, and was even now forcing him to hold his grotesquely elongated mouth open — raw, weeping flesh bared — so he could press a knife to the boy’s tongue. The boy was shaking so violently it was making the metal of the bench sing.

‘ _He_ _’s going to cut out his tongue and make him choke on his own blood: you might want to stop him._ ’

“Acqen,” Ren said, unable to look away from the sight in front of him. “Stop.”

That, at least, he could get across. Still holding the boy, Acqen turned to him, a single eyebrow raised. Then he rolled his eyes and stood up, pushing the boy away. Ren was naïve enough to think that that was it: he wasn’t prepared when Acqen wheeled around to shove the boy’s head so he was almost biting the edge of the bench, and with one brutal kick, shatter his skull against it.

The airport was silent: Ren felt the sound echo through his bones.

Dropping his foot back onto the ground arrogantly, like a child told to stand up straight, Acqen shoved his hands into his pockets and said something acerbically.

‘ _He said you_ _’re a pain,_ ’ Caïn said gently.

That was it. That was the extent of what Ren could stand. Ripping his eyes from the boy’s corpse, he leapt to his feet and grabbed Acqen’s shoulder, forcing him to look at him.

“You can’t fucking do that!” he shouted, not caring at all that Acqen wouldn’t be able to understand him. “You can’t kill people like that! They were just trying to protect their territory! If you had to kill them, then do it quickly: I _know_ you’re strong enough for that! Why the fuck did you have to do that?! Why—” (here he felt hysteria warp his voice) “—why the _fuck_ did you do that?!”

Acqen shouted back. It was messy and fast and angry as the curl in his lip, and he slapped Ren’s hand away viciously.

‘ _I_ _’m sure you can imagine what he’s saying. He thinks you’re an idiot; they were going to kill you and in fact did; he was showing them who’s boss; you have no right to criticise his methods; you’re a child. With more profanity. Oh, there he goes._ ’

Acqen had stormed away, and Ren didn’t follow him. There was a crash of broken glass and he winced, and then Acqen’s footsteps faded away. Ren walked forwards then, until he was far enough from the boy’s body that he couldn’t smell the blood, and then he stopped, and breathed.

‘ _Are you alright?_ ’

‘ _Am I wrong?_ ’

Caïn padded in front of him, getting up on his hind legs to put a paw on Ren’s calf. ‘ _Wrong? You mean about reckless and sadistic violence?_ ’

‘ _I mean, when you put it like that_ _…_ ’

‘ _That_ _’s what it is, Ren. You don’t have to entertain the idea that his way is better solely because he looks down on you for yours._ ’

Caïn wasn’t often so judgemental about other people. That helped, in its way. Ren didn’t want to believe that he was wrong, and childish, and stupid for hating what had just happened, but when faced with a will as impermeable as Acqen’s, it became easy to doubt oneself — it became easy to move closer and closer into Acqen’s side in an attempt to find common ground because Acqen wouldn’t. But he didn’t want to not care about the things he cared about. He didn’t want to desensitise himself to things like what had happened to that boy, that man, the other people upstairs, and he didn’t want to become the sort of person who would dream of ever doing that.

‘ _If I might,_ ’ Caïn said, ‘ _I don_ _’t think you should become that person either. Of course I will never tell you who to be or what to think, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to believe in mercy, and the goodness of people. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with refusing to let go of your ideals just because others call you childish for wanting the best for everyone. Not to sound biased, but I prefer people like that, anyway. You…you remind me, sometimes, of someone I used to know._ ’

Ren sunk to a crouch and closed his eyes. Hanging his head, he began to stroke Caïn. ‘ _Were they nice?_ ’

‘ _He was nice._ ’

‘ _That_ _’s good, then. I wouldn’t want to remind you of someone you hated._ ’

‘ _I didn_ _’t hate him._ ’

Ren nodded, and continued to stroke him. The soft fur through his fingers calmed him: he thought, slowly, that he would have to leave the airport soon. His own blood had matted in his hair and it was uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to be here anymore. He felt responsible. He hadn’t wanted any of this, but he still felt responsible.

He half-hoped Acqen had driven back without him so they wouldn’t have to share an enclosed space, but he had no such luck. The car was still parked (badly) in the kiss-and-ride. Because he was an adult, he walked to it and got in, doing up his seatbelt without a look or word to Acqen. Acqen didn’t speak either, at all.

 

 

Vike and Einierre came back the next day. Vike took one look at Ren’s expression and swept him up into a hug, coaxing him into telling her what had happened. She didn’t seem surprised: Einierre, perched on the windowsill, only sighed and said that she’d hoped Acqen had got better, and it was disappointing that he hadn’t. There were two days left until the sixth floor opened: they said they’d keep Acqen occupied and away from Ren until then, but that they’d probably all have to work together when they attacked the tower.

That wasn’t a problem. He was mature enough to do that.

The other three came back on the morning of the seventeenth, and Ren stayed glued to them the entire day. Ryhad had managed to break his arm in his instance game, but it was a clean break, and with his healing abilities, they were confident it would be fused again by the next day. He wasn’t allowed to move much or the others shouted at him.

That night, Vike and Einierre did a very charitable thing by taking Acqen out for a stroll as he, restless to a fault, liked to do sometimes. The house was left quiet and peaceful in anticipation.

“Feels like ages since we’ve attacked the tower,” Norhan said, stretching as he paced around his and Cade’s room.

“That’s because it has been ages.”

“I’m mostly worried about the other players,” he went on, ignoring Ryhad. “I mean, we’ve never done that big of a group instance before, right? What if we’re all pitted against each other?”

“The tower said we need to defeat the Sleeping King, though…” Ren had nothing to do, same as the rest of them, and was lying on the sofa. He found himself lying on sofas a lot these days. “I don’t really see why it would bother pitting us against each other when we’ve all got the same goal.”

“Bet it’d find a way.”

They were all agreed on that. Ryhad was sitting up on the bed with the air of someone who would blow a fuse if he was shouted at for moving one more time, idly watching Norhan wander around the room. Cade was on the end of the sofa, Ren pushing at her gently with his feet as if to push her off, and given the small smile on her face when she hit his feet to stop him, it seemed she liked the game. It kept her entertained, at least. Ren worried about her, surrounded by people so much older than her. Her brother talked to her, of course, and Vike and Einierre did when they had time, but it seemed lonely anyway. She was, at least, getting better at sewing. Better than Norhan was at plaiting her hair, at any rate.

“Does anyone know anything about the Sleeping King?” Ryhad asked in an open question to the room at large.

“I’ve heard of him a couple of times.” Pulling his feet back after Cade swatted them again, Ren looked out through the windows at the shape of an unlit streetlamp outlined by moonlight. “I don’t think I actually know anything, though. I guess I knew that he was asleep. Oh, and he likes small animals. I swear Kirby said that.”

“Did they? I don’t remember that.”

“It was when they took Caïn.”

Ryhad and Norhan made sounds of comprehension. “We weren’t watching for the first part,” Ryhad said, leaning back against the mound of pillows Norhan apparently needed on his bed. “We had different instructions: some round creature and a humanoid round creature that looked a bit like a spider just shouted at us. Do you think the small animal thing is something we can use?”

“Not that many small animals around anymore,” Norhan said thoughtfully. “And don’t look at me like that: I don’t count. Guess you’d better just keep Caïn on you and hope the cute factor does something to him.”

“Have either of you heard anything else?”

Apparently neither of them had. That wasn’t notable: it was rarer for monsters to tell players about unrelated monsters than the opposite, and either way, no one had ever fought the Sleeping King before, on account of him having been asleep.

‘ _Do you know anything about him?_ ’

Caïn, lying on Ren’s stomach, gave no visible sign of being awake. ‘ _I do._ ’

‘ _Are you going to tell me?_ ’ Ren asked dryly. ‘ _If we die because we_ _’re not prepared enough, I really won’t ever forgive you. I won’t tell them about you: I could just say some other monster told me._ ’

There was a long pause, during which Norhan finally stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his arms out to his sister. She scrambled off the sofa to go to him, and Caïn said, ‘ _He_ _’s powerful. You should think of him as stronger than any monster you’ve met before, though his strength varies quite dramatically depending on the circumstances. He doesn’t like games. He won’t be alone, though: other monsters and underground bosses will be there to block your way._ ’

Playing it off as something he’d heard on the first floor, Ren relayed that information. The others took it in with solemnity.

“I don’t like the sound of him not liking games,” Norhan said. “That sounds like it’s going to be totally combat-focused.”

“You’ve spent the last month preening over being a level seven and now you choose to be a coward,” Ryhad said with disdain.

“You know what I mean! Just shut up and heal your bones.”

“Unlike some people, I can do more than one thing at a time.”

“That’s why I asked you to shut up too.”

Both of them were smiling: Ren could hear it in their voices, though he was still looking out of the window. Light summer rain was falling outside, drops sparkling when the starlight caught them.

“I think…” Norhan said, “it might be better if Cade sat this one out. I get the feeling she won’t be able to attack the fifth floor at the same time as us, and if it’s between her ending up on the fifth floor alone and her staying here, the latter’s probably better.”

One floor behind everyone else, Cade had never ended up clearing the fifth. Norhan hadn’t let her do it alone and there was no one to do it with her.

“That makes sense,” Ren said, to offer support.

Quietly, Norhan began to talk to his sister. Caïn, who had been painstaking in this ever since the truth had come out, said, ‘ _He_ _’s just explaining it to her. She doesn’t seem thrilled about the idea, and— ah. She says she doesn’t want to leave him: she doesn’t want to risk losing him too._ ’

‘ _You can stop,_ ’ Ren said hurriedly, grateful he was looking away because it hid the embarrassment of hearing something he wasn’t supposed to. Cade continued to talk, quiet and quick, until her brother’s voice cut her off again. A few words more, and then Norhan said, “She doesn’t really want to be left out, but she’s cool with it.”

“Tell her we’ll bring her back the head of a king.”

“Ryhad, I am not telling that to my little sister.”

“Young children are morbid: she wouldn’t mind.”

They continued to bicker about whether or not it would be beneficial for Cade’s growth, and Ren listened to them, but didn’t turn around. The rain was hypnotic. He felt like he could sink into the sofa and never get up again.

 

 

Early on the morning of the eighteenth, nine figures and one fox waited under Moscow’s black tower. In several other cities across the world, significantly smaller groups waited similarly.

“Ding dong!” the tower called happily, back to its childlike voice as if it had never known how to speak differently. “June 18th, 2018. The Black Tower version 4.0 is now live. All fifth floor players, please attack the tower and defeat the Sleeping King!”

And the humans, servants to the tower’s will, did so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mirenwe: do you think we should offer to take care of cade while they're away?  
> jiirva, sipping chianti: anybody who lets children near me does so at their own risk  
> mirenwe: you're a softy at heart and you know it. where's hosgard i feel like he would like kids  
> jiirva: he went to kick cupid out  
> mirenwe: why didn't you do it  
> jiirva: i have a low tolerance for slutty and acqen is using my entire quota  
> mirenwe: but you'd like him fine if he was just submissive, right?  
> jiirva:  
> jiirva:  
> jiirva: you don't get to talk back to me anymore


	30. you know what would go well with this chapter? a nice glass of chianti for all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore-ish

“Ding dong! The black tower’s sixth floor (normal mode) has officially opened. The team game is loading…

“Sandbox is being generated…

“The game data is loading…

“Ding dong! Russia District 1 players Eïen Sanastar, Aävardan Jayära, Kirinz Lair, Ren Delacroix, Ryhad Dalisirene, Norhan Eppalai, Vike Larle, Einierre Luta and Acqen Utei have successfully entered the sixth floor. As of 6:01 June 18th, 2018, a total of 24 players have successfully entered the floor. The effect ‘Revolutionaries’ has been triggered.

“Welcome to the Palace! All players please defeat the Sleeping King.”

Ren opened his eyes to the sound of Acqen grumbling about being billed last. They were in stone gardens: grey gravel underneath them, and off-white sculptures and statues that merely suggested the shapes of nature in the place of actual plants. There was a pattern to their placement, and the gravel was occasionally taken over by large, monochrome paving stones, or lines cut into the garden by stone gates: that was all there was, as far as the eye could see, until the eye turned to rest on the massive palace in the middle of the gardens. It towered: seemingly made entirely out of great black metal beams, it soared high and arched up, like a set of metal bridges all tangled together into the vague outline of a castle. Everywhere, there were white spores in the air: it seemed that they were the only living creatures here, apart from the players; they were buffeted by the wind, and pulled in a steady stream towards the palace.

Far to the right, there was an explosion, and people began to move.

The players seemed to have been brought to different points around the palace depending on the Zone, but all around, there was a general understanding: they needed to get to one of the many doors of the palace. The problem was that the way wasn’t clear: surrounding the palace were a number of bosses, most of which Ren didn’t recognise. Eïen and his set were the first to go, separating from the other Russia Zone players at a run: they headed down a set of stone steps, presumably towards either an opening or a monster they knew. The others continued straight on, down a gravel path that weaved between stone statues like carved bone, and it looked like they might even reach the palace, until they hit a mass of black and white paving stones that looked worryingly like a chess board, and, from nowhere, a monster descended on them.

It had been a long time since Ren had seen the Flower Fairy, but he hadn’t had the luxury of being allowed to forget her. She hovered above them, fury tight in the lines of her demonic little face. Golden curls floated around her as if lifted by the force of her anger, and she threw a buttercup down onto the stones. It fell like a brick: it smashed and splintered and sparked, and somehow a shard of petal found its way onto each of them.

“I’ll grind every single one of you up into pieces and _eat_ you!” she screamed as all six of them tried to rip the shards off. “Don’t think you’ll be forgiven for what you did to the Frog Prince!”

“Oh no…” Ren muttered, wrestling with the deceptively sticky shard of petal, but no one else looked too concerned.

“Ding dong!” the black tower said happily in a concentrated kind of way, as if its voice was only supposed to reach their small party. “Trigged the game ‘Flower Fairy’s Wrath’. The rules are as follows: there are six kinds of squares…”

Ren stopped listening. None of the others were paying attention either: as the squares underneath their feet each stabilised into one of six colours, Acqen (self-appointed leader) said, “Just kill her and she can’t keep us here.”

The logic was sound. As one, they attacked her. It didn’t even need all of them: Ren and Einierre got there first, and what with all the inventory he’d been taking, he knew right away that he wanted to throw Kirby’s star at her, so even though she managed to dodge the apparently explosive rose petal Einierre had hurled at her, the star hit her full in the chest and she screeched in pain. Ren caught her with his chains and brought her to earth as the smoke cleared. Once it had, he had to look away from the sight of her, dripping with sap-like blood, her papery skin ripped as if peeled away from her flesh. Vike was about to spear her through the chest with a lance that seemed to be made of ice, but at the last second, she roared and broke free of the chains, audibly breaking at least one bone in the process: on ragged wings, she shot down to Ryhad as fast as a hawk. He didn’t manage to block her, and both he and Norhan had to rip her away from him so Vike could shove the spear through her head, pinning her against a nearby statue like some grotesque mockery of a butterfly in a display case.

“Are you okay?” Ren asked, rushing to Ryhad’s side and deliberately looking away from the Vike pulling her spear out of the Flower Fairy’s skull. “It looked like she got you pretty badly…”

“It’ll be fine,” Ryhad said, terribly cavalier about the nasty wound the fairy had gouged out of his chest. In all fairness, it wouldn’t be a grievous injury given his current healing ability, but it was still alarming to see, even after he’d done his coat up over it.

“Are you people _finished?_ ” Acqen asked in an insufferable voice, picking the petal shard off his wrist; they’d loosened now. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be last into the castle.”

Without waiting for an answer, he began to run again, pushing spores out of the way, so he wasn’t there to hear Ren call him a prick.

‘ _That_ _’s not going to be it, is it?_ ’ Ren asked as the rest of them began to run too.

‘ _Oh, absolutely not, no._ ’

Casting furtive glances around the stone gardens at the other groups of players clashing against monsters, he could well believe it. He just hoped, fervently, that the other monsters and underground bosses would leave them alone for as long as possible.

For a little while, it seemed like that might even be the case. The six of them (seven with Caïn) ran through the gardens, and they were too far from any of the other groups to be targeted. At the low price of a gouged chest, they made it through the gardens and onto the cobbles in front of the metal monstrosity of the castle without trouble. Its ground floor was surrounded by doors: Acqen, of course, reached one of them first, and swung it open with a clang against the girders of the thick metal beam that made up the doorframe. He ran inside, and swore, loudly. Ren shared an apprehensive look with first Ryhad, then Norhan, but none of them slowed down. Einierre joined in the swearing when she made it inside, possibly purely for the fun of swearing, and when Ren reached the doorway, he just made a face.

The door led to an entrance hall. It was at least as wide as the building they’d entered, but had no sign of the other doors, and didn’t seem to fit the space it had taken up from the outside, despite being made of the same thick black metal, but none of that really mattered, in the end. The room was wide, with a giant flight of stairs at the other end that led up to two separate first floors on the left and right, and the high ceiling was flooded with light from different windows, around which spores congregated — that didn’t matter either. What mattered was the swarm of undead milling about the entrance hall.

“Are those _zombies?_ ” Ren exclaimed in disgust, backing away to where the door had once been (it was a blank section of metal now).

“Resuscitated Corpses, Ren, get it together,” Acqen said in his usual unhelpful way despite being in a different body; he slammed a mass of knives through a corpse’s head and didn’t stop to watch it fall.

“They’re really not so bad!” Vike said brightly, spearing three at a time, but it became difficult to find time to speak after that. The Resuscitated Corpses were quick and vicious, and Ren wasn’t good at close-range combat. At Caïn’s instruction, he tried to forge a route through the snarls, the rotting teeth, the grasping, skeletal hands, to get to the stairs, but it wasn’t easy, and less so with Caïn in his arms. He tried to make a chain cage around him, but it didn’t really work, and he hissed with pain when one of the corpses raked a long scratch down his arm.

‘ _How you got this far without perfecting close-range fighting, I have no idea. It_ _’s really incredible. Find someone to protect you._ ’

He wanted to talk back, but couldn’t: it was, in fact, incredible. With a few well-placed shots of the chains at corpses that came too close to him, he made it to his sisters and, with the help of Einierre’s exploding petals, the two of them managed to make it through to the stairs without more than a few more scratches.

“You don’t think they have rabies, do you?” he asked, putting Caïn down now they were above the corpses’ apparent range.

“We got bitten a couple of times back on the third floor and it was fine,” she said in a distracted voice, leaning on the banisters so she could look down at Vike, who had somehow gone completely around the stairs. “Babe?” she called down over the general cacophony of growling corpses and fighting. “What are we doing, exactly?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Vike’s voice came muffled through the sea of corpses, and she wasn’t able to look up, being occupied by spinning her spear and cleaning out five corpses in one go, but she sounded cheerful. “Huai Yue just appeared over in that corner!”

“Oh!”

Other players had been popping up in the crowded entrance hall bit by bit, but Ren hadn’t been paying attention to them. He made a sound of surprise when Einierre got on the banisters and jumped down to join her girlfriend.

“What the hell?!”

“We’ll find you later!” Vike shouted, letting Einierre cover her back as if it came naturally. “Got to go find some friends, but as long as the tower doesn’t make us compete against each other— oh dear!” She cut herself off upon seeing something beyond the stairs, and began to slice a path through the corpses to run there. “See you!”

He didn’t have the time to object: the next thing he knew, there was a heart-stopping crash as one of the massive metal beams of the ceiling fell down, crushing at least twenty corpses in one fell swoop. Another came, and another, and Ren began to worry the castle was collapsing, but they stopped there, and — quite calmly — Acqen transformed back into his normal form and walked over the beams and pulverised bodies to reach the stairs. The other corpses didn’t seem to like that much, but he was already on the stairs and out of their range, and he stuck his tongue out at them.

“That was taking way too long,” he said nonchalantly, joining Ren with a flip of his hair. “Don’t look at me like that: I just corroded the joints. Why the fuck are the others taking so long? How much time do they think we have?”

“They’re just coming,” Ren said defensively, looking down to see Ryhad and Norhan using the same path Acqen had, now it was open; they were being followed by one or two other players, and Ren was about to call down to them when Caïn shouted a warning at him and he jumped back, narrowly missing Acqen’s hand of knives slashing across his face.

“What the _fuck?_ ” he yelled, scrambling back over the cold metal floor, each plate welded together messily, leaving ridges for him to trip over. Acqen was back in one of his other forms now, a middle-aged woman, and there was nothing in his expression at all. It was as if he was in a daze as he lashed out at Ren again, and it was only when he turned that Ren saw the arrow sticking out of his back. Still dodging, Ren looked up, trying to find the archer, and eventually stopped his gaze at the entrance to the right-hand passageway. He felt his stomach drop when he saw Cupid lounging on the banisters there. He didn’t look pleased.

“You have arrows?!” Ren yelled up at him, twisting to get away from the apparently possessed Acqen again. “Since when did you have arrows?!”

“Since forever! Just die in a fire, kitten, I don’t care about you! Where’s your—”

“Why the _fuck_ are you here?!” Norhan shouted in disbelief, cutting him off. He and Ryhad had finally got to the midway point of the stairs where it split across to the two sides, and while Ryhad rushed to help Ren with the (ironically) zombie-like Acqen, he stood at the foot of the right-hand stairs to face Cupid. Other players, seeing this mess, began to run up the other side, but that wasn’t the best decision in the world: Cupid was clearly high-strung, and, seeing humans get away from him, he made a sound of anger. With a snap of his fingers, he shot an arrow into the metal stairs. It sung, and as the sound reverberated, the arrow twisted around and around, and then it split into two, and both parts whipped in a circle, faster than Ren could see, towards two players who had tried to escape. One used a prop to avoid it; the other was decapitated. Cupid didn’t even watch: with the body language of a threatened cat, he stood up on the banisters, braids and gauzy clothes flying about him, and stared down at Norhan.

“I’m going to make you pay for what you did,” he snarled above the chaos down below.

A flurry of arrows shot at Norhan. He transformed, and as Ren yelled at him to _really_ try and not be hit, he swerved to the side and with one powerful kick from his hind legs, effectively climbed the wall, his claws digging in and puncturing the metal before he leapt off, to another mass of arrows. He couldn’t get too close: that became obvious quickly. Every time he tried, there were arrows, and he had to dodge, but to dodge he needed space, and that didn’t exist in close range. He had to keep backing down the stairs, a growl rumbling in his throat, before trying again.

Ren was distracted from all that by the sight of Acqen’s mind returning. It was visible: one moment he was docile, and the next he was spitting acid and demanding to know why he was tied up by Divine Retribution.

“You were possessed!” Ren said in the vocal equivalent of putting both his hands up in surrender. “You were trying to kill me! You— oh shit, duck!”

They both ducked, avoiding the arrow Cupid had shot at Acqen, likely to renew his possession, and in the brief reprieve that followed, Ryhad sprinted up the stairs, jumped onto the banisters, and before he had even regained his balance, threw two small projectiles at Cupid. Ren recognised them as Dracula’s fangs. In the time it took him to wonder how Ryhad had managed to not use those up yet, Cupid dodged one, was hit by the other, and then had to deal with a massive wolf launching itself at him. With a yell, he lifted his hand to shoot more arrows, but it was too late by then: Norhan’s jaws closed over his arm and ripped it off at the elbow. Before Cupid had even finished screaming, his throat was pierced through by one of Ryhad’s knitting needles.

The mania fizzing through the room diminished, just a little. Resuscitated Corpses were still trying to eat players and each other down on the ground floor, but the stairs, at least, were calm for a moment.

Acqen made a dismissive sound, transforming back into his normal body. “Whatever. He was small fry.”

“Small fry that possessed you.”

“Nobody likes a nit-picky bitch, Ren.”

With a quick shared glare, they jogged up the stairs to join the others, Caïn at their heels.

Beyond the door onto the first floor was a long corridor. Steaming pipes ran along the metal walls, curving at odd junctions to go up or down, and there were no doors, or windows. It was just darkness with dull, yellowing lamps above, and their echoing footsteps. It was claustrophobic, but Ren still didn’t like it when they came to the end of the corridor, because that meant more fighting, he was sure.

He was right, too. Beyond the doorway was a series of winding corridors, and when they came out into a wide, domed room, the walls weaved from hissing pipes, it was to meet Grandma and the Wolf Grandmother, of all people.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Ren said with feeling, trying to push Norhan (still in wolf from) back into the corridor in an attempt to pretend they’d never come this way at all, but it was too late. The grandmothers had clearly been waiting for them (or for someone, at any rate) and they looked vengeful.

At Ren’s side, Norhan growled, and leapt at the Wolf Grandmother like an idiot. Ren couldn’t leave him to face both of them alone: with regret in his heart, he ran for Grandma while the other two came up to the room and took stock of the situation. The Wolf Grandmother met Norhan on all fours, her pink nightgown fluttering around patchy grey fur, and they clashed as two giant beasts will — violently. It was like something out of a nature documentary, and Ren had to force himself not to worry about them so he could better stand before Grandma and face her. She leered, towering above him, and her eyes bored into him like woodworms into furniture.

“My sweet grandson,” she said, and reached out a hand as fast as a whip; he only just managed to jump out of the way, but backed up against the pipes, and yelped when they burnt his skin. When he regained his footing, he shot Divine Retribution at her, but something happened in that moment. Before his chains could wrap around her neck, they began to waver; while he stood motionless, they fell to the ground, and he realised he couldn’t move. Her eyes burnt like the metal of the pipes; they tore into him and gripped him by the guts, stopping him where he was. He couldn’t move.

‘ _Close your eyes!_ ’

Easy for Caïn to say: he wasn’t trapped in Grandma’s spell. Ren heard the din around him dim to almost nothing; distantly, he was aware of Acqen joining Norhan in attacking the Wolf Grandmother, but he couldn’t quite process it. Even when Grandma reached out a hand to grab him, he couldn’t do anything. It was only when Ryhad dragged him back, spinning him around so he wasn’t facing Grandma anymore that he could suck in a breath and move again.

“That wasn’t very good of you, Gretel!” Grandma said in a voice that scraped like rusty nails. “I always knew you were an ungrateful grandchild!”

“Keep your eyes closed,” Ryhad said quickly, and ran at Grandma.

Ren didn’t see how he was supposed to fight with his eyes closed, but he also didn’t see that there were many other choices.

‘ _3 o_ _’clock — go straight ahead and shoot your chains with the intention to impale._ ’

Following Caïn’s instructions was what Ren was good at. His heart was quivering in his chest with the fear of having to fight without really being able to see, but every time he tried to sneak glances, Grandma was right there, and he couldn’t risk it again. Obeying Caïn, he managed a hit through her shoulder, but was unable to avoid it when she retaliated by grabbing him about the waist and hurling him at the opposite wall with a roar of rage. His cry was swallowed up by the rest of the noise that choked the room, and he grimaced in pain as he pulled away from the burning pipes. His arm was broken: he was fairly sure about that, but didn’t have the time to bemoan it.

Opening his eyes just long enough to get his bearings, he ran back to Grandma, wrapping his chains around one of her legs and trying to pull it out from under her. It was like she was made of solid iron: even with his heightened strength, he couldn’t do more than unbalance her, and though he heard her snarl in pain, and knew that Ryhad must have scored a hit, he couldn’t do any more than that.

Looking over at how the others were doing with the Wolf Grandmother, he saw with a sinking sensation in his chest that even Acqen hadn’t managed to kill her. A moment more, and he realised it was because Acqen wasn’t trying. He was barely fighting: leaving it all to Norhan and only lashing out if she came near him, he was crouched down, his hands to the metal floor. Ren realised there was a long web of corrosion spreading across it, but that was all he managed to take in before both Ryhad and Caïn called his name and he ducked to avoid the punch Grandma had just launched at him. He hadn’t even heard it coming, there were too many enraged growls coming from the other side of the room. He barely heard it, in fact, when Acqen yelled, “Over here!”

But he did hear it, and so did the others. Working as quickly as they could, they forced Grandma and the Wolf Grandmother into the centre of the room, and maybe the grandmothers were cocky, and didn’t believe anything could harm them, because they went. The ease of it made Ren lower his guard. He focused too hard on the task at hand, missed Caïn’s warning, and wasn’t able to avoid Grandma’s hand when she reached down to grab him; struggling, he was hauled into the air.

“Ren, get away from there!”

“Does it look like I _can?_ ” he shouted back at Acqen, still trying to worm out of her hand. It took two knitting needles to her wrist and a chain shot through her palm to get her to loosen her grip, and he fell back onto the floor; the second he had, there was a deafening shriek of tortured metal, and the floor gave way. Ren scrambled back from the rift Acqen had cracked open, and could only watch as the grandmothers fell through onto the floor below. There were a lot of alarmed shouts: with horror, Ren realised there were players down there.

“Use your dental plaster!” Acqen ordered angrily, because of course he’d orchestrated this entire thing without giving them any hints and now wanted to get mad at them for not knowing what was going on, but Ren obeyed anyway. It took all the plaster he had to cover the hole, but he managed it before the grandmothers could climb back up: shouting a quick apology at the poor players they’d just condemned, he activated the plaster and watched it harden into something indestructible.

Calm fell over the room, punctuated by the hissing of pipes.

“Is everyone okay?” Ren asked, looking up.

Norhan had transformed back and was bleeding severely from his left leg — it looked like the Wolf Grandmother had bitten a chunk out of it, but apart from uncharacteristic paleness and some tension to his jaw, he looked like he was ready to walk it off. The others weren’t injured. Acqen was yawning.

“Can we get a move on?” he said, completely blasé about the whole thing. “If someone else defeats the Sleeping King before me, I’ll kill something.”

They did, after all, need to hurry. Ryhad asked after Ren’s broken arm, which wasn’t doing too badly, he thought, and they both made Norhan lean on Ryhad for the run, and followed Acqen.

‘ _Are we even going the right way?_ ’ Ren wondered, looking around doubtfully at the staircase they had begun to climb.

‘ _All roads lead to the Sleeping King here. You_ _’ll be fine._ ’

That was both reassuring and incredibly ominous. Caïn didn’t seem in a chatty mood, so Ren left it there.

After the stairs were more corridors, all made of black metal, and then another staircase, and it wasn’t until they were two floors up that rooms began to reappear. All were unfurnished. There was the space for furniture, but Ren didn’t suppose this was the kind of palace that got lived in. He was still thinking about how eerie it all was, now they were away from most of the chaos, when they ran into a solar and the door slammed shut behind them.

It was a huge room, the ceiling made entirely from curving glass, and it was absolutely freezing. On the other side of the room, sitting with her legs spread on a throne made of packed snow, was Snegurka, her blue hair flying in the blizzard that had descended upon the room. That wouldn’t have been surprising in and of itself: what was surprising was that the Mermaid Princess was with her, sitting on her lap with her arms wrapped around Snegurka’s neck.

“I really am going to kill you now,” Snegurka said in a low, dangerous voice, and the next thing they knew, razor-sharp icicles were shooting at the four of them from all directions.

‘ _You need to get out of here,_ ’ Caïn said, but he sounded distracted. Ren was distracted too: it took all he had to avoid the incessant rain of icicles, and within ten seconds he’d already been hit twice. Both times, the ice had raked through his flesh and frozen the wound into a stiff vice of ice-burn.

‘ _The Mermaid Princess likes you. Say something nice to her._ ’

How was he supposed to do that? But Caïn was rarely wrong: skidding away from the others in part to get closer to the mermaid and in part to avoid the destructive shields Acqen was forcing out of the floor, he stopped and said, slightly hysterical, “You actually got to her! That’s great!”

Through the blizzard, the mermaid turned wide, inhuman eyes on him and blinked.

“Yes!” she said with an air of victory, hugging Snegurka tighter. “I did do it. It is great!”

‘ _Tell her to let you out. Say you have someone you need to see too._ ’

“Please—!” Ren yelped out, and had to throw himself to the side to avoid another onslaught of icicles before they ripped his face apart. “Can you let me go through? There’s someone I need to find, just like you!”

The Mermaid Princess’ eyes widened.

“Ren, what the _fuck_ are you doing?”

“Do you just not know how to speak to people without criticising them?!” Norhan yelled back at Acqen.

“I’m a little stressed out right now!”

“So are we!”

“Please!” Ren said again, ignoring them. He was pleading with the mermaid, trying to block as many icicles as he could with his chains, but still they cut through him. “Please let me go!”

There was another moment of hesitation — then, the Mermaid Princess leaned in so she could whisper something in Snegurka’s ear, and Snegurka sighed heavily.

“You can’t be serious,” she said in a grumpy voice.

The mermaid whispered something again, and there was another sigh.

“Fine. But only because you’re asking, alright? And I’ll take it out on you tonight,” she said, tilting the mermaid’s face towards her so she could kiss her, viciously. The mermaid didn’t seem to mind. She was very flushed when Snegurka let her go and announced loudly, “The one with Caïn can go on, what do I care.”

A door opened near her throne, and Ren felt the icicles lighten up around him. Thanking them, he ran towards the door, and there turned around to check the others.

“I’m sorry,” he called. “I really am!”

“Ren, it’s _fine_ ,” came Ryhad’s voice, in between a grunt of pain and the scream of metal shattering ice. “Go ahead.”

“Hey, can I go too?”

Everyone in the room seemed to pause in the face of Acqen’s bare-faced audacity. There was some more whispering, and Snegurka sighed so loudly it might as well have been a groan. “Fine! Whatever! As long as I get two of them to torture, do I care? No! Fuck off, then!”

Ren couldn’t quite believe it when Acqen ran up to the door to join him. Once he was through, the door closed of its own accord, and they were left in silence. Both of them were dripping with blood.

This new corridor was made of metal too, but there were windows on either side, looking down onto the turrets and roofs of the palace. It was airy: some of the windows were open, and spores floated through, riding on currents that took them along the corridor and down the other end.

“I hope they’ll be okay…” Ren said, biting his lip as he looked back at the door.

“They’ll be fine, and even if they’re not, as long as we defeat the Sleeping King, that’s all that matters,” Acqen said, grabbing Ren’s arm and pulling him along at a run. “Let’s go.”

Caïn was running too; Ren couldn’t hang back. His body was pulsating with pain, and he felt slightly light-headed, but he ran too, and tried not to think about anything too deeply.

There were many, many corridors. All had windows, all were light, and all were empty. They ran for a long time. For most of it, there was no sound but their own footsteps: it was only as they began to climb up the palace again that there came the distant noise of fighting. Running through empty room after empty room, they heard the sounds grow louder. The walls began to shake with the force of it. Ren’s body felt light, weightless with adrenaline.

When they finally reached it, it was without any warning at all. They were just crossing yet another empty room when Ren noticed that the doorway on the other side of it was lighter than usual. It seemed to lead out onto a walkway at the side of an enormous room, as tall as the entire palace, as if the inside of it had been gutted of floors to leave only one giant empty space. Streams of spores flowed around the top of this space, brightened by a hundred and more stained-glass windows in white and yellow; Ren was just about to step out onto the walkway to get a look at what was below when Acqen grabbed his arm and jerked him back, holding him there.

“I think it’s time,” he said in a closed voice, “that you tell me what’s going on.”

He wasn’t speaking to Ren. He was looking down, firmly, at Caïn.

There was a human shout from down in the next room: someone was fighting whatever was in there. Ren wanted to go and help, but he couldn’t move.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?” he asked, laughing in the best impression he could make of casual. “We’re going to go defeat the Sleeping King, remember?”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Ren, you know full well I wasn’t talking to you,” Acqen snapped at him, and turned back to Caïn. “Explain everything now, or I’ll kill you both here.”

And, using the grip he already had on Ren’s arm, he dragged him closer and transformed, putting a hand full of knives to Ren’s throat.

“Acqen…”

‘ _You really shouldn_ _’t do that,_ ’ Caïn said, and it must have been to both of them, because an expression of deep satisfaction crossed Acqen’s face, and he let Ren go.

“I won’t, if you explain everything to me.”

‘ _We don_ _’t have the time for this._ ’

“Be quick, then.”

Ren wanted to say something, to protest, to make Acqen see sense (but wasn’t he seeing sense? Wasn’t it worth finding out what Caïn wanted, now, because this might be their last chance?), but he didn’t manage to get the words out. Before he could, there was a bestial roar from the other room, and the entire palace shook. Ren stumbled; unable to quell his curiosity, he stepped out onto the walkway, just enough to see, and stopped dead.

There might have been players down below, but he couldn’t see them from where he was. It was too far down. The walls of the room were pitch black, lit up only by the windows at the top. These painted the room in squares of white and yellow light, and under that light shone gold. There was a figure, in the middle of the room. Taller than a building, it was the rough approximation of human — there was the shape of a head topped by a crown, sloping down into what could have been shoulders, and then a giant mass that might have been a body — but all of it was molten gold. It dripped and flowed, moving fluidly as it constantly melted and recreated itself. Every movement sent splashes of gold smearing against the black metal, and there it hardened and became dull. The rivers of spores ran into this golden monstrosity, burning up with tiny screams.

The gold king howled. Ren had never heard a sound like that before. It took him to pieces and put him together wrong. It was pain, and anger, and betrayal, and despair. Even when Acqen pulled him back into the other room, it echoed through his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mirenwe:  
> jiirva:  
> mirenwe:  
> jiirva:  
> mirenwe: did. did hosgard ever come back from kicking cupid out  
> jiirva, shattering a chianti glass into dust: that biTCH


	31. let sleeping kings lie; let chosen ones die

The palace shook with the force of the golden king’s grief. Spores screamed as they burnt to dust on his surface. Far below, human players fought. In the small connecting room, Acqen crossed his arms and stood in the doorway that led out onto the walkway, blocking it and the chaos below.

“I want you to explain everything to me,” he said. “Now.”

“How did you even find out?” Ren asked, trying to focus on the easy, mundane things, as if that would protect him from the storm. His broken arm hung limply at his side, but he gestured with the other.

Acqen shot him a glare. “Ren, can you do me a favour and _please_ not ask stupid fucking questions now, of all times? It wasn’t hard! You’re not clever: you couldn’t come up with half the stuff you do without help. You’re not quiet: with any normal animal, you’d be showering it in baby talk or something but you literally never ever speak to Caïn, _almost_ like you have a different way of talking to him. You’re not discreet: it’s obvious when you understand a language you shouldn’t. It wasn’t hard. So you,” he said, turning back to scowl down at Caïn. “What the fuck are you?”

‘ _I_ _’m a monster. I thought that would have been obvious,_ ’ Caïn said in something that veered very close to a sneer. Then he was all urgency again: ‘ _You need to hurry up: you can_ _’t waste time like this._ ’

“And how do you know that?”

‘ _Anyone would know! This world is screaming it at you!_ ’

“But you know better than most. How many times have you been here? How many times have you done this?”

Ren stared at him. The conversation was moving too fast for him: he was scrabbling at Acqen’s meaning, but couldn’t see how he’d come to the conclusion that Caïn had done this before. How could he have?

But Caïn flicked his tail in unease, and said, ‘ _Seven._ ’

“Seven. Which world did you start in? How many are there?”

‘ _You_ _’re getting this the wrong way round_ ,’ Caïn said, an edge of frustration to his voice. ‘ _It_ _’s not about the worlds. They’re not_ worlds _, either: they_ _’re realities. As far as I know, the only reality with a Sleeping King is this one, and I’ve always been in this one. I did start out on a different world to you,_ ’ he said, pacing about skittishly, as if he wanted to go into the next room but couldn’t. ‘ _It was nothing like Earth, but we were brought into the tower games just the same. I was a player, like you two: all I did was try and beat the games. My ability lets me grant another player good fortune: that_ _’s what I’ve been doing with Ren, and I did the same with another player from my world. It all played out the same: we couldn’t get into the sixth floor right away, and when we did, it was to defeat the Sleeping King, and my partner… He was strong. He was a hero, and he managed to defeat the Sleeping King. But that’s only the first part: afterwards, the Sleeping King asked him questions — the tower’s instructions were to satisfy the king. My partner failed, and he became the next Sleeping King. The other players there tried to defeat him too, for another chance, but time ran out._

‘ _Time is running out now too. This isn_ _’t a normal game,_ ’ he said, and it sounded like he would have been gritting his teeth if he were speaking physically. ‘ _Every tower reality attacks the sixth floor at the same time. When the tower brings a world online, it splits it into multiple versions, multiple realities. I have no idea why: I think it_ _’s for a larger sample size, but I don’t_ know _, I_ _’ve never left this one. I only know through glitches like that returnee player: they were from the returnee reality. The monsters and bosses change, too, with each new world, like they rotate through realities: the point is that there are multiple realities, and all of you are competing to be the one that reaches the seventh floor. That’s why you couldn’t attack the sixth floor right away: it was waiting for every reality to be ready, so you could all do it at once. If you run out of time here, if another reality wins, the game ends, and this reality ends, and all of you die. Everything in the Sleeping King reality resets until the next world is brought online. You have to hurry: I’ve heard other monsters say this reality is easier than the others, but that’s just because it bottlenecks here. If you can’t defeat the Sleeping King, it’s over, and—_ ’

“And why should we believe literally any of that?” Acqen asked dryly. There were cuts all over him from the icicles: deep bites into his flesh that had only just stopped bleeding, and rivulets of blood were drying over his skin and clothes, but he stood with all the confidence of an emperor.

‘ _If I were trying to trick you, I could have started at literally any point except right before the end. I could have talked to literally anyone other than Ren. You know I_ _’m right about the other realities — why shouldn’t I be right about this? And Ren, you’ve seen my ability—_ ’

“You knew he had an ability?!” Acqen demanded, turning on Ren with a gaze like acid. “Didn’t you think that maybe we should have known about your fucking monster pet having an _ability?!_ ”

‘ _I told him not to tell you,_ ’ Caïn said, a low growl coming from his mouth. ‘ _I told him not to tell you about anything. I know that anyone but the person I choose to guide won_ _’t trust me easily, and I couldn’t let them take him from me. I’ve tried enlisting others and it hasn’t worked. I’ve done this seven times,_ trust _me._ ’

“Yeah, see, I’m still not getting that part,” Acqen said in a voice like ice. Behind him, there was a heart-shattering roar, and Ren flinched as he looked through the doorway and saw gold splash against the wall above the walkway, dripping down the black metal before hardening into a dim, tarnished replica of what it had been. Acqen didn’t seem to have even noticed. “If you were a player in a world that ended, why are you here? Ren, get out the shell.”

‘ _We don_ _’t have time for this!_ ’

“Then explain it quicker!” Acqen hissed as Ren, suffocated under everything he’d just heard, got out Shout of the Sea and activated it so it would alert him to any lies spoken in his vicinity.

‘ _I used a prop,_ ’ Caïn said, his ears and tail straight up, tensed like wood about to snap. ‘ _Right at the end, I used a prop. I didn_ _’t think it would work but I had nothing left to lose, and I couldn’t leave him. I…seeing what I’d done to him, what…what I’ve led him to…I couldn’t leave him. I can’t._ ’

There was a moment of pause. It was difficult to read a fox’s body language, but Caïn had gone still, and wasn’t looking up at Acqen anymore. Another moment, as if to recover himself, and he said, ‘ _The prop worked. It put me in the body of a monster, and I became one of the tower glitches, just like that returnee who ended up here instead of their own reality. I receive the same information as the other tower inhabitants, I follow the same rules, but I_ _’m not tied to the games. So I’ve tried to make this right. Over and over, I’ve tried, and it hasn’t worked yet, but all I can do is keep trying. Ren, you have to try too._ ’

Ren jumped at the sound of his name, and the jolt to his arm sent a shock of pain through him; he flinched, and wouldn’t have been able to answer right away if Caïn had been looking for that. The flood of new information had left him reeling, but what time was there for reeling? The shell hadn’t alerted him to the presence of a lie even once. If everything Caïn had said was true, then there was no choice: they had to hurry.

Surprises like this were nothing new for this world. What right did he have to complain?

‘ _I_ _’m sorry,_ ’ Caïn said, accompanied by the cries of the golden king, who had once been a player. ‘ _I_ _’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry I kept it from you, and I’m sorry about the others, but I’ve done this too many times. I’ve lost too many people now: my priority is protecting those under my guidance. My priority is keeping you alive, and freeing the Sleeping King. I love him, and I led him to this. I decided I’d spend the rest of my life trying to free him and everyone else in this reality. That’s all. I’ve used my ability on you all this time: you should be prepared to answer his questions, more so because you’re blessed by the moon god. I can’t let you die, and I can’t let you fail and become the next Sleeping King — I can’t do that to another person,_ ’ he said, speaking quicker now, frantic as the frenetic beats of Ren’s heart. ‘ _He_ _’s still in there. I know he is: his questions are different to the Sleeping King he fought, and…and I can feel his pain every time he’s forced to wake up and destroy everything._ ’

Ren didn’t know how to reply. There was another howl from the other room, another shockwave of impact, and a human scream.

“So we need to defeat him and then answer his questions,” Acqen said, as impersonal as sun magnified through glass to burn insects. The world around him was his magnifying glass: in the face of impending tragedy, he remained unsympathetic. “Is Ren the only one who can answer? Because you guided him?”

‘ _No. I don_ _’t think so. I don’t know. It gives him good fortune, according to the definition of good fortune that he needs: it should help, at least, and the moon god—_ ’

“Yeah, I got that part. What are the questions?”

‘ _He asks the player_ _’s name, their purpose, and why he thinks we all deserve to clear this floor. Then he asks if the player has any questions for him._ ’ Caïn’s voice was ragged, and it was so unfamiliar that Ren felt as if he’d had the floor pulled out from under him.

He hadn’t, yet. The palace shook as if that fate was imminent, though.

“Do you know the right answer to any of those?” Acqen asked, picking at a patch of dried blood on his hand.

‘ _I don_ _’t. I’ve never seen anyone called out for answering incorrectly, though. Nobody’s failed like that: if they manage to defeat him, they all just…don’t answer correctly. And then time runs out._ ’

There was a new sound from the other room, one Ren was too familiar with by now. The sickening crunch of bone against an unyielding surface. The spores’ screaming was dying down, leaving everything else bare.

“Alright.” Acqen let his hand drop, and then, decisively, unzipped his parka and threw it off, stretching with newfound mobility. “Guess that’s that, then. Your arm’s broken, so I’ll defeat him.”

“You’ll what?” Ren asked, turning to look at him, feeling as if he’d just surfaced from water that had been crushing him. “Where the hell are you getting that confidence from?!”

“Experience.” Acqen began to tap the toes of his shoes against the floor, as if testing to see if they were on properly, and he shot something that might, in another world, have passed for a good-natured smile at Ren. Behind him, there was an inhuman roar.

“I’ll need to use your ability, probably,” Acqen said as if explaining a shopping list. “When I do, hold him back for me. Otherwise just keep up and think about those questions. Take this too,” he said, holding out a small glass box that contained something that looked like a compass, but had no markings around the pin. He squeezed the box until it shattered in his hand, and gave Ren the compass. “Keep it safe and for the love of god, don’t drop it anywhere. Let’s go.”

He turned around and began to run for the walkway. Ren hesitated: putting the compass in his pocket, he looked back at Caïn, but Caïn didn’t move.

‘ _Go._ ’

“You’re not coming?”

‘ _I can_ _’t go where I might be killed_ ,’ he said in a voice that seemed to use resignation as armour over something much more fragile. ‘ _I need to stay alive to try again, in case you fail. I can only watch him from here._ ’

“Oh,” Ren said, unable to say anything else.

‘ _I_ _’m sorry._ ’

“Ren, come _on!_ ”

He turned and ran after Acqen, leaving Caïn alone — a small, white shape in a cage of black metal.

The walkway was rickety, sorely tested by the impact and weight of the Sleeping King’s gold. It protested when Ren ran onto it, and protested louder when Acqen leapt up onto the safety rail and jumped down, transforming into his elastic form while he fell so he could grab onto a handhold in the wall and slow his fall. Ren couldn’t move, for the first second or two. He was transfixed, face to face with brilliant gold. The Sleeping King didn’t seem about to move; he might as well have been rooted here, to this room, for how he melted into the metal. Now Ren was faced with him, he could see that the Sleeping King was less humanoid than he first seemed: he had no legs, and didn’t appear to have arms until one detached from the roiling mass of melting gold to reach out towards Acqen, far below. It was difficult to see, but Acqen seemed to transform again, and stabbed both hands of knives into the Sleeping King’s approaching arm — there was a moan of pain from the king, sizzling where the blades impaled him, and then Acqen swore loudly and pulled away, transforming again as he recoiled from the gold to run around the perimeter of the room. Ren lost sight of him.

Slowly, Ren’s muscles remembered what he had to do. Getting out Divine Retribution on his good arm, he climbed onto the handrail of the walkway, and — wrapping the chain around one of the chandeliers about which spores circled — he jumped, and it was only as he fell that he began to grasp the full scale of the king’s size. It was what he imagined it might be like to face a dinosaur, or some other prehistoric behemoth: he was so unequipped to stand up to a creature this massive, this unconcerned with the lives of humans, that he might as well not have been there at all. Just as the king probably couldn’t see him as a threat, Ren almost couldn’t see him one. He was there, a fact of life, and Ren would merely have to accept what happened next. Hair flying, his heart in his mouth, he fell to the ground, and stumbled, taking care not to step on the molten gold — it didn’t seem as hot as it might have been, but it still steamed. Acqen was around the other side, letting out shouts of exertion that were quickly followed by the clash of metal against metal.

Retracting his chain, Ren hugged the wall and began to walk around the room. He knew he should have been attacking too, but the lumbering, monstrously powerful movements of the Sleeping King were like nothing he’d ever seen before, and he didn’t know what to do. He had no idea how to fight something like that. He ran, trying to find Acqen, and had to dodge, yelping in distress, several times, when the king’s gold broke off and splashed against metal close to him. He could see bodies far across the room, at the other side, and almost tripped when he recognised Vike’s hair. There was another, dark-haired woman near her, and that was all he could see before the king reared up and plunged down, pulling apart into a torrent of gold that must have been designed to drown Acqen. When the king reformed, Acqen was fine, having pulled shields out of the ground into a box around him, and the women’s bodies were no longer visible.

Ren didn’t know if they were dead or not. He didn’t want to think about it. His head was a chamber in which the devastating crashes and fluid noises of the king’s attacks echoed, broken up only by quick bursts of instinct. Dodge here, duck there, and keep running, until the smear of blue of Acqen’s shirt became visible again — he was like a fly buzzing around the king. But perhaps not so ineffectual: some things were happening. He was in a new form, the one Ren recognised as letting him corrode metal, and he was crouching, hands touching one of the tendrils of molten gold. There was hatred on his face, and Ren saw bubbling green creep up the gold like rot. Acqen had to keep stopping to jump out of the way of attacks, picking up again when he had a moment, only to then have to transform into a wolf to leap up the wall, claws digging into the metal like they’d both seen Norhan do, to jump back onto the Sleeping King, transforming mid-jump, and use his knives again.

He was relentless. He switched bodies constantly to escape exhaustion: he transformed instead of taking moments to breathe. Tirelessly, he flew about the king faster than the king could track, and when it seemed he would be caught, he dug his knives into the Sleeping King’s body and climbed him.

The king howled. It was always a little off-time, as if he couldn’t react right away, and there was never only pain in his voice. It was a mix of everything that was difficult to hear. Ren watched in a kind of awe, and couldn’t move. Even when Acqen — perched for an instant on what might have been the king’s shoulder — transformed into a totally new form and screamed in an unimaginably high pitch, shattering all the glass of the hundred and more windows above them, it was only instinct that made Ren run for an alcove, out of the way of falling glass. The king could not escape, and shrieked. Countless shards of jagged glass fell into him and he shook, limbs breaking out of the mass of his body to thrash about, and finally the room gave way. The shaking had become too violent: to Ren’s horror, he saw the metal beams crumple and break away from each other, collapsing.

It wasn’t something a human could survive.

 

 

When Ren woke up, it was to sunlight, and the sound of destruction. Whether through planning or using Ren’s ability, Acqen had survived too, and was still fighting the Sleeping King. A quick scan of the rubble and Ren easily located the king, apparently unharmed by the hall caving in; it took a second longer to find Acqen. He was on the crumbling roof of the palace, using the same tactics he had before. The green tarnish had grown up enough of the Sleeping King to be noticeable now. It wasn’t fading.

Ignoring the sense of imbalance that came from reviving with his body fully intact once more, Ren got to his feet and ran for the closest stable wall. Avoiding splashes of gold, he climbed it, struggling with shaking arms. His mind was a siren with no space for free thought: he had to climb, he had to get back to Acqen, he had to be there.

For what?

He climbed anyway. Heaving himself to the top with arms and chains, he crouched on the torn-up tiles of the roof, a foot away from falling all the way back down, and watched Acqen plunge his knives into the Sleeping King’s head. Determination and disdain held his face rigid: he fought as if with distaste for the very fact that he had to fight at all. The Sleeping King fought like he was forced into it. Reluctance weighted his body down, but he attacked every time just the same.

Ren ran awkwardly over unsteady tiles, trying to join them, but his gaze strayed. The height afforded him a better view over the entire palace, and he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It was just a palace of black metal. There were no other visible fights, no fires, nothing. Only the Sleeping King and Acqen broke up the tranquillity, and they did it loudly. Acqen let out sounds of frustration as often as the Sleeping King let drop pieces of gold: he was fighting with everything he had, but he didn’t seem to have the time to summon forth a blow that would make any real damage. Chipping away at the king wasn’t doing anything. The corrosion stayed on the king’s gold, but he made more to cover it: there needed to be a concentrated effort.

Ren had to remember for himself that he was the only one there to provide support for that. Ordinarily, Caïn would have told him. He’d grown too used to being given the answers.

And Caïn wasn’t here anymore, anyway. No one was. It was the three of them. Ren didn’t know where the others had gone, but they weren’t here.

“Are you going to hurry up and _do something_ or what?!” Acqen yelled sourly in between dodging the Sleeping King’s grasping, dripping hands. “Hold him back, for fuck’s sake! How long did it take you to revive?! Motherfucker!”

All of this was directed at Ren; only after Acqen had made sure his feelings were felt did he turn back to the king and stab his face again — that face, larger than Acqen was tall, contorted into shapes that were the suggestions of facial features, and he howled.

It hit Ren anew every time. It wasn’t a sound that was easy to get used to.

He extended his chains, stretching them around the king’s neck, and tightened them into a noose. He’d half-thought that they would sink right into the gold, useless, but the king reacted. Hissing with no mouth and no vocal cords, he struggled against Divine Retribution, and struggled harder when Acqen leapt from the roof onto his head.

For a second, Acqen was lit up by the sun, his body outlined in gold. Then he landed, and plunged his hands onto the Sleeping King, and transformed.

The corrosion began to take effect immediately. It ate into the king’s body ravenously, gorging itself on the gleaming, golden shine, and left him ruined. He screamed, many times. Ren had to let go of his neck and wrap the chains around any arms that formed to pick Acqen off. It was impossible to stand up to the king in terms of strength, and Ren was thrown about the roof brutally several times, but if he dug the chains in tight enough, the king would pull back, and try a different way. He didn’t seem able to stand pain for very long. It was pitiful, in a way. The howls grew softer, as the corrosion gnawed away at the gold: they became less expressions of unfathomable pain, and more wordless sobs. That too was pitiful. Ren forced himself to focus on buying Acqen time, but it wasn’t easy. He kept getting distracted by the immense figure in front of him, tossing and turning in apparent agony, and all he could think was that this had once been a player. This had once been someone like him.

Everything was perfect for righteousness. He was on the palace roof, tiles strewn around him; he was bruised and bloodied and the wind was rushing around him; the sun was shining and he was holding back a monster as Acqen killed it. But he couldn’t feel righteous.

Slowly, the gold began to crack. Acqen’s face was twisted in pain: his hands were bright red and — whipped away by the wind almost as soon as it came — there was the smell of burning flesh, but he never moved. Immobile, he spread the corrosive mould over the Sleeping King’s body, and pieces began to break. From the cracks came light. It was blinding, far brighter than the sun’s rays beating down on them, and Ren had to look away. Squinting from the corner of his eye, he kept holding back any attempts the king made to rid himself of Acqen, but even the king seemed to have realised it was over. The sobs from before were more sob-like now. He was crying without tears as his body splintered, releasing more and more light: it was like the whistling of a kettle climbing higher, and neither of them could do anything but watch Acqen bring it to its peak. Nauseating cracks drowned out the Sleeping King’s cries; the palace and the roof and the ground shook with his distress; the cracks split wider, and wider still.

The world became light.

 

 

Activating his ability had been instinct. Ren gasped for breath and looked up from the gouged-up earth and grass beneath his arms. He must have been flung from the roof, and he hadn’t been the only casualty: the parts of the palace that had been near the Sleeping King were now a mangled mess of tortured metal, melted in places.

There were no spores anymore. There was no noise, at all.

Getting up among the rubble, the sun shining on his back, Ren looked around him. He couldn’t see Acqen anywhere, and he refused to let himself think about that. To spread the corrosion, Acqen would have had to stay in that form, and without Ren’s ability, he wouldn’t have been able to survive the blast. Ren was sure about that.

The palace hadn’t been entirely destroyed, at least. But no one had come. No other players had made it here, in all that time. Even now, he could only hear the distant cheeping of birds, as if to mock him.

He swallowed, and walked forwards.

The way was paved in gold. It lay everywhere like cooled lava after an eruption, and he picked his way over it, careful not to slip. There was something glowing, ahead, in the middle of the destruction. Tripping over a girder that had been torn apart, he stepped closer, trying to remember what Caïn had said. That was what mattered right now. Wasn’t it? That was what mattered. So he walked forwards, climbing over debris, and made it to the glow. Pushing aside a panel of metal, letting it hit the rest of the scrap with a deafening clang, he looked down at the Sleeping King’s heart.

“Ding dong!” the tower said in rapturous tones. “Main branch triggered. Please satisfy the Sleeping King!”

Ren kneeled down, taking the heart in his hands. It was a small, twisted bit of gold, and it pulsed. It was warm to the touch.

“What is your name?” it asked, in the same voice Ren had once heard announce the king’s awakening, but quieter. Weaker.

“My name’s Ren,” he said.

“What is your purpose?”

“To clear the sixth floor.”

“Why do you think you deserve to?”

Ren’s mouth was dry. “I don’t think it’s something you just…deserve,” he said. “I think if you can clear it, then that means you deserve it, but…I think everyone deserves to clear it, if that means they get to live. I know the tower doesn’t think like that, though. So…I don’t think we deserve it more than any other reality. But we did what the tower asked, and loads of people have died, and we’ve all tried so hard, and that’s all we were supposed to do, and more, so I think we deserve it.”

It all came out in a rush of half-finished thoughts, and he had no idea if it was the right answer, but it was what he thought. He couldn’t give better than that.

The tower didn’t call out his failure. The king’s heart continued to beat in his cupped hands, and then the last question came.

“Do you have anything for me?”

Caïn had said it would be a request for a question. He hadn’t said it would be phrased like that. Ren faltered.

He had to satisfy the Sleeping King. That was the very clear instruction he had been given. But how? He didn’t know anything about him. If he was an actual fairy-tale character, he’d never heard of him. Freeing him would surely satisfy him, but how was Ren supposed to do that before answering the question correctly? Or maybe he was supposed to soothe the king’s pain, somehow? He hadn’t seemed to enjoy pain at all — maybe that was it. But how was he supposed to go about that? And if Caïn had called it a question, was it supposed to be a question after all? But Caïn had never seen anyone do it right, so that didn’t matter anyway.

It was just satisfaction, then: just that, just that, but _how?_ Caïn would know. Caïn knew everything about him: why wasn’t he here now? Ren couldn’t see the familiar dot of white anywhere among the rubble or the remains of the palace. Of course he had to keep himself safe, but the worst of it was over now, wasn’t it? Where was he? Ren realised with numbness that he was going to have to do this alone.

What if he just asked how? Maybe he was allowed to ask. There was nothing saying he couldn’t. He ran through the past few minutes, just to be sure, and then licked his lips, and said, “This…this isn’t what I’m giving you, not yet, but…can you tell me how to—”

“Ding dong! The sixth floor has been successfully cleared. This is not the successful candidate! All losing candidates will be shut down in preparation for the seventh floor. All losing players, thank you for playing!”

Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ability: Heart of Gold]
> 
> [Owner: Hosgard ??? (reserve player)]
> 
> [Type: Genotype]
> 
> [Function: the player can produce an exoskeleton of gold around part or all of their body at will. The player can grow this exoskeleton around part or all of another creature’s body as well, but cannot grow one of their own during this time.]
> 
> [Level: 7]
> 
> [Restrictions: The gold is governed by the causality principle and cannot be broken or permeated except by something governed by a causality principle of a higher magnitude.]
> 
> [Remarks: If we were trying to teach you a moral here, we’d make protecting someone else more advantageous than protecting yourself, but we’re not. It’s up to you.]


	32. we are, and always have been, golden.

Splashes echoed through the cave like pulses of light in darkness. Spores hovered near the craggy ceiling, exuding a faint glow that, when multiplied by their clusters, made the rock glisten, and lit up the lace-like cobwebs that hung, dripping, from ghostly stalactites. The floor of the cave was flooded, and only faint differences between how the light was reflected from water and slick stepping stone showed the way.

Everything was quiet now. They had left the others behind, and no more tower monsters had come. Under the mere skeleton, the bare bones of light, two men hurried from stone to stone, hand in hand. One had dark skin, dark hair, and a nature as calm as the bottomless water that surrounded them. The man leading him was shorter, and didn’t have to duck under the slight sheen of the stalactites; he was sun-kissed, gold in skin and eye, and the ponytail that flowed behind him was the colour of a blush, but faded under the spores’ light.

“Maybe we should have stayed,” Caïn said, jumping across a wide stretch of black water that rippled from the impact of his landing. “I’m not sure leaving Wido was the right idea.”

“She’ll be fine! She’ll never let anyone touch her, you know that.”

“I do: I was worrying about us, not her.”

Hosgard laughed, and the sound was bright as bells in the shadow-wrapped caves. There was so little light, Caïn could barely see the outline of their clasped hands in front of him, but he didn’t need to see to feel. He squeezed, and Hosgard squeezed back, leading them around a corner and under a particularly vicious set of stalactites.

“We’ll be fine,” he said confidently, helping Caïn cross another wide gap.

“We almost died trying to take down the Judge. Twice. I’d bet anything the Sleeping King is stronger.”

“Ah, but I can’t die, remember? You’re blessing me with good fortune, my own guardian angel.”

“It’s not that powerful,” Caïn said, but heard the smile in his own voice. “It’ll be a grand disappointment in the end and we’ll have to wait for Wido to bail us out.”

“It won’t be. You couldn’t disappoint me: everything about you is amazing.”

Caïn stifled a laugh. He didn’t like how the sound resonated around the open spaces of the caves, but the darkness helped. It was difficult to see, but it bundled them up in shadows, offering them this place for their own. A moment of peace. He didn’t have to see the wounds raked into Hosgard’s back, or his own injuries. There were no tests, no games, just them, for this moment set apart.

They reached the end of the caves too soon. Light began to creep back in: it bared them again to the eyes of the world, and they heard the distant sounds of fighting, and grating, animal roars. The water was shallow now. Stopping in the mouth of the cave, they stood in water and looked at each other. Hosgard was smiling — he always was. Reaching a hand up to cup Caïn’s face, he got onto his tip-toes and kissed him. When he pulled away, he was smiling still, his eyes shining.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s show them something they won’t forget in a hurry.”

He was dazzling. He was the kind of man Caïn thought he would follow to the ends of the world and further still. Light emanated from him, warming everyone around him, but that light did not save him when the tower bell tolled for him.

It all went to darkness in the end. And again, and again.

Again.

 

 

***

 

 

Ren opened his eyes, and where there had been darkness, there was now Acqen’s face.

“…it safe, and for the love of god don’t drop it anywhere,” he was saying, as if nothing had happened, and he was holding the compass out over Ren’s hand, but when he went to shatter it, the entire thing collapsed into dust that fell through Ren’s fingers.

They both looked at it. A deep groan of straining metal shook the palace, and Ren blinked, and breathed, and realised where he was. It was the circular room of black metal they had stopped in before the fight with the Sleeping King. Somehow he was back. Somehow, everything had been returned.

“Oh,” Acqen said, looking up from the dust. “Alright, then. What went wrong when we did it the first time?”

“What went…what? You’re…how are you…?”

‘ _Ren, what_ _’s wrong?_ ’

“Reset Compass,” Acqen said, flicking a finger dismissively at the dust on the floor that shook when the Sleeping King sent tremors through the palace. “Once the holder dies, it’ll reset everything back to when it was activated. Tell me you didn’t die for a stupid reason. How far did we get? Stop gaping, you idiot!” He grabbed Ren’s shoulders and shook him. “Tell me!”

“You defeated the Sleeping King,” Ren said robotically, staring into Acqen’s eyes. He kept clenching and relaxing his hands, continuously making sure he was still here, alive. “He asked me his questions, but I…I didn’t know how to give him what he wanted, and while I was hesitating, we ran out of time…”

“Okay. Okay, that’s fine,” Acqen said, letting Ren go to take a step back and put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. “That’s not bad, actually. We can buy you more time: unless something really fucky has happened, none of the other realities should have noticed we’re doing this again, so they’ll do everything the same. That’s good. How did I defeat him?”

“With…corrosion…but—”

“I _knew_ it’d be that. Were you holding him back for me?” At Ren’s nod, he put his hands on his hips and looked victorious. “Good. Let’s do that again from the start. That’ll speed things up, and you just keep thinking about how to satisfy him,” he said to the sound of the Sleeping King crying out in pain. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Ren grabbed Acqen’s arm with his good hand (because of course his arm was still broken here) and almost tripped trying to hold him back. Desperately, he said to Acqen’s unforgiving gaze, “Acqen, you…you died, because we used that strategy. You couldn’t transform into me fast enough so you couldn’t use my ability, and—”

“So?”

“…so…?”

He shook himself loose of Ren’s hand. “So what? The compass broke, Ren: we’re not doing great for time here. We don’t get another chance, so why waste time finding a different route? This one works: we’re using this one.”

“But you’ll die!”

Acqen laughed unkindly. There was disdain in his eyes. “Everyone’s dying, Ren. Grow up and get used to it.”

That stung. It was true, but it still stung to hear, and for a moment Ren couldn’t reply. He watched Acqen turn, tell him to get a move on, and walk through the doorway. They were just going to do it all over again, he realised. They really weren’t going to change anything.

‘ _Did you really already do it all?_ ’

He turned back to look down at Caïn, and nodded.

‘ _How is he?_ ’

Ren didn’t know who Caïn was referring to until he picked up on the way the question had been put to him. It had been asked as if Caïn was embarrassed to ask at all, but this was Caïn: he wouldn’t say anything he hadn’t already thought over. He must have thought it was important.

Ren said, “Hurting, I guess. I don’t know. He was crying.”

‘ _Oh,_ ’ Caïn said in a choked voice.

“Ren, hurry _up!_ ”

“I’ve got to go,” Ren said, stepping over the dust of the compass. “I’m sorry.”

‘ _No, I_ _…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this,_ ’ Caïn said — quickly, quickly, following Ren right to the doorway and then no further. His tail was flicking back and forth in discomfort. ‘ _I_ _’m sorry I led you to this too. I’m sorry you have to do this alone. I don’t know how to satisfy him either. Not anymore. I’m sorry, Ren, but I’m so proud of you. You did better than I ever thought you could. I don’t want you going into this thinking Acqen’s right, because he’s not: you have every reason to be proud of yourself._ ’

“ _Ren!_ ”

His feet moved of their own accord, stepping out onto the walkway, but he didn’t take his eyes off Caïn. He was a small, still shape in the doorway, watching Ren with black eyes.

“Thank you,” Ren said, even as Acqen pulled him out into the main room, into the chaos of gold and grinding metal. “Thank you for everything, too, I—”

But what else was there, really, to say? He’d just be making everything more solemn than it already was. Swallowing, he turned around, and jumped off the walkway when Acqen did.

 

 

The fight didn’t last as long, this time around. Now he knew to focus on the corrosive ability, Acqen wasted no time, and Ren backed him up as best he could. It was relentless, again, but this was not the whirlwind it had been the first time: this was like stabbing a raging boar and letting it drive itself into the spear in its efforts to take revenge. The Sleeping King was less bloodthirsty, though. He cried.

Acqen didn’t destroy the windows, this time, but he didn’t need to: in the Sleeping King’s distress, he raged and — because Ren blocked all attacks on Acqen, near the king’s base — he shot gold upwards instead, shattering the glass and melting the beams until it all came crashing down. Ren hid under Acqen’s shields, and once everything had fallen to the floor, he aimed a chain up to a thick metal girder that stuck out of the ruined roof, wrapped the chain around it, and pulled himself and Acqen up; they shot through the air faster than the king could catch. Before he could even react, in fact, Acqen had hopped from foothold to foothold and landed on his head.

There it began again. It was the same, again, but instead of being dragged around a roof, Ren had wrapped one chain around the girder he was sitting on, effectively tying himself to it, with twenty or more metres separating him and the ground. He only had one free chain, and could not afford to be unseated: despite himself, he was harsher in stopping the Sleeping King’s attempts to pick Acqen off. The chain bit into the gold and the king flinched, the movements slowed by his bulk. He was slower than before, Ren thought: he moved without motivation, only misery. Acqen didn’t care. The corrosion spread over the king mercilessly. Before long, he was almost totally discoloured, and didn’t seem able to defend himself anymore, when his surface began to split. He tried, but gave up at the slightest touch of Ren’s chain. Ren was forced to sit there, staring into the almost-featureless face of a creature he was complicit in torturing, and he realised, with sickening certainty, that he couldn’t do it anymore.

He retracted the chain. Acqen swore at him, but the damage was already done: the gold was cracking like drying mud, and nothing would stop it now. Light beamed out of the cracks, and the Sleeping King had stopped moving. He watched Ren, just as Ren watched him, and he didn’t turn away. Even as Acqen yelled at Ren to activate his ability, neither of them moved: watching each other, they were torn apart by light.

When Ren woke up, it was to see the Sleeping King’s heart lying next to him, glowing.

They were surrounded by rubble: it was just the same as before. The sun was shining, distant birds called, flimsy clouds crossed the tower’s sky. The palace was partly ripped to pieces, but mostly still intact. There was no one else to be found. It was totally silent.

Ren sat up, got to his knees, and lifted the king’s heart into his hands again.

“Ding dong!” the tower sang. “Main branch triggered. Please satisfy the Sleeping King!”

Then it came: “What is your name?”

“Ren.”

“What is your purpose?”

“To clear the sixth floor.”

“Why do you think you deserve to?”

“Because we all deserve to live.”

“Do you have anything for me?”

He didn’t know. Even now, he didn’t know. He’d been given nothing to work with but that one instruction, and he still didn’t know.

The heart was beating in his hands, but it felt weaker than he remembered it. Instinctively, he held it tighter, wishing Caïn were here. Caïn would know what to do: at least Caïn knew who this heart had once been. They’d been close. Why couldn’t he be here now? Ren couldn’t do this alone.

There wasn’t much choice, though.

His thoughts flew like shooting stars in an unwelcoming sky of desperation. The Sleeping King was in pain — he had to undo that pain. How? He didn’t know how to comfort people he didn’t know. Did he know the king? He knew he’d been powerful, and that Caïn had been close to him. What did that give him, in the end? He couldn’t be wrong, but he didn’t know how to be right, and he wasn’t even sure he could be — but Caïn had told him he should be proud of himself. And Caïn had said something similar, once, in a Moscow airport: that he preferred people like Ren. That, in refusing to hurt others, Ren reminded him of someone.

There was no reason that that someone had to be the player who had become the Sleeping King, but Caïn had called the king a hero. And here the king was, ground into dust by every repetition, with no apparent desire to hurt the players he killed.

He wasn’t bloodthirsty, he wasn’t vengeful, he wasn’t a tower monster. He had once been a hero.

Ren breathed in.

“I’ve got a request for you,” he said, and it felt as if the entire world fell silent to listen to him. “I want you to let everyone live.”

There was no response. The heart pulsed.

“I want you to make sure everyone survives this. I don’t know if you can, but I want you to. I don’t care that it doesn’t make sense,” he said fiercely — fiercely now, his voice strong and confident, his mind made up. “I want you to do it for me, because we don’t have to die just because the tower wants us to. No, we can’t turn back time — apart from with the right prop, apparently! — and we can’t bring back people who’ve died, and we can’t undo what the tower’s done to us, and we can’t go back to the people we once were: that’s just logic. But the towers aren’t logical, and this isn’t fair. It has to be fair! Everything has to be fair: that’s the _point_ , but none of us got a say in this! If the tower won’t be fair, I won’t be fair either. I want everyone to live. Not just our reality: all of them. That’s not stupid. It’s not naïve or childish,” he spat, “it’s just hope. There’s nothing wrong with that. If the tower’s not fair, we don’t have to be. We’ll wish for everything we want, and we’ll take it. That’s what I want from you. That’s what I’ve got for you.”

There was no response, still. The heart pulsed and Ren watched it, praying for a miracle, because he had nothing left otherwise. If that wasn’t the right answer, he was lost.

It wasn’t fair to put the weight of the world on his shoulders alone, either. He felt that keenly.

Time passed, and with it his heart-rate sped up. He had been so set in his decision, but each second was water pressure eroding it, and he began to worry that he ought to try and throw everything he had at the heart to see if anything stuck. But wouldn’t that demean the answer he’d already given? What if he was only allowed one answer? He didn’t know! How was he supposed to know?! None of this was easy!

When the tower spoke, he felt as if his stomach had been dropped and crushed into the rubble beneath him.

“Ding dong! The sixth floor has been successfully cleared. This is not the successful candidate! All losing candidates will be shut down in preparation for the seventh floor. All losing players, thank you for playing!”

“No,” he said, and then, louder, “No! I—”

Everything went black.

 

 

***

 

 

The Sleeping King’s powers were limited. He had never truly tested them before, because he had never been allowed to before. He had a role, and he fulfilled it, and that was all. Until now.

Perhaps because of his inexperience, his wish-granting skills were incomplete. He did not manage to save everyone. What he did manage to do, with the withered remains of his strength granted a last burst of energy by the light in Ren’s proposition, was breathe life into this reality, and protect it when the others were terminated. He was, finally, extinguished, with regrets.

The Sleeping King reality was left alone. Those who had died before the sixth floor were not brought back to life, and the survivors were not restored to their original world, but the casualties of the sixth floor were erased, and things began to grow again in the world the tower had put them in. Abilities disappeared, but enhanced physiology did not. Instances disappeared, but the towers did not — but still, they only hung over the earth, an inescapable reminder.

It was not a permanent reprieve. The Sleeping King’s powers were, after all, limited. Plants would not grow forever in the sterile earth, and the remaining humans, too, were left sterile as a result of all the towers had done to them. This was a shield, not salvation.

That was still something, though.

 

 

***

 

 

“If you keep holding him like that, I’m going to get cross, Ryhad.”

“I told you I don’t know how to do this,” Ryhad said through teeth that weren’t gritted but might as well have been. “Look, take him back—”

“Absolutely not,” Erlen said with finality, and raised her head to look at Norhan with meaningful eyes. “Would you be a dear and show him how it’s done? He’s as hopeless as Foryn. I’d say it runs in the blood but Kiyran was very good with him.”

Laughing good-naturedly (possibly because he got to lord something over Ryhad for once), Norhan leaned over the back of the armchair and gently repositioned the tiny baby in Ryhad’s arms. Ree had just turned one, and seemed content to be carried and fed and shown interesting things until he tired himself out and cried. Ren had never had much contact with small children, and leaned over the edge of the sofa to get a better look.

“He’s really cute,” he said, truthfully.

“His forehead is very big.” Erlen’s tone was one of regret. “We’re hoping he grows into it. Of course we’ll love him no matter what and never let him know if he _does_ turn out to be ugly, but look at it.”

“It’s not that bad,” Norhan said, reaching past Ryhad’s neck to stroke Ree’s cheek with a finger. Ree reached up and grabbed that finger in an uncharacteristic show of vivacity, holding it with all his tiny baby might. Of course Norhan couldn’t then pull back (that would have been cruel), so he stayed in that uncomfortable position, and didn’t seem to mind much, mostly because it was annoying Ryhad.

“The good news, of course,” Erlen said, settling back into her own chair, “is that he seems to need as little food as we do. Can you imagine breast-feeding multiple times a day? I can’t. It was hard enough giving birth with absolutely no anaesthetic or help.”

“You had Foryn and Cleo,” Ryhad pointed out.

“Have you met them? I’d have thought it would be obvious to look at them, but they’re both useless in crises of that nature.”

“A birthing nature?”

“Exactly.”

“Fortunate that you’re unlikely to come across another one of those,” Foryn commented as she walked into the sitting room, bearing a cup of tea for Erlen and only Erlen. She leaned down to put it on the coffee table, pressing a kiss to Erlen’s cheek as she did.

“And so you remain perfect in every way,” Erlen said warmly. “Could you fetch me a blanket, love?”

And off Foryn went, servant to her wife’s every wish. She seemed happy. Ren watched her go, pulling his knees up to his chest, and — to the sound of bickering between Ryhad (who thought it was high time Norhan moved back) and Norhan (whose finger still hadn’t been released by Ree) — he met Erlen’s eye, mostly by accident. She smiled: it was a smile without need for words or reason, just a simple mutual understanding that they were both happy here. He returned it.

A lot could happen in a year. Could, but hadn’t: now he thought about it, it felt as if they’d done very little in the past year. More company was better than less: after recovering from the sixth floor, everyone had gone back to Ukraine and joined Alderian’s set there. The vast majority of the surviving population had taken to farming for practicality’s sake: even non-perishable food wouldn’t last forever, and they still needed to eat, if not much. Either way, they had no idea how long their tower-induced resistance to hunger and everything else would last. They had to plan for the future, such as it was. And they were getting somewhere, Ren thought. They had got far enough, in fact, that they had finally made time to come and find Erlen and Foryn, to see if they would come back to the settlement.

Well, the main reason had been to see if they were still alive, and (if so) if Erlen had given birth safely, but no one had ever actually said that, so the official reason was still recruitment.

“How is your little sister, anyway?” Erlen asked Norhan, who had apparently lost the argument and retracted his hand.

He was now just leaning against the back of Ryhad’s chair, and said, “She’s doing good! Warming up to people more. She hangs out with Ren’s sisters a lot which means her English is improving but she’s also learning a lot of cussing.”

Erlen nodded studiously, and turned back to Ren. “Ren, you have to know that though I have never met them I think the world of your sisters, but also they will not be allowed to meet Ree until he’s old enough to swear.”

“How old’s that?”

“Twenty.”

Ren couldn’t immediately tell if she was being serious or not, but by that time Foryn had come back with the promised blanket and, while laying it over Erlen’s lap, told her to stop being dramatic.

Ree began to cry. He did it seemingly without warning or provocation, and while Foryn and Ryhad looked at him with twin expressions of alarm, Erlen asked Norhan to rock him, and Norhan did so, picking him out of Ryhad’s arms and making small sounds such as were appropriate to make at babies.

The light was fading. Electricity was still limited, even with generators and renewable energy coming back into use, and Foryn got up to light candles. Erlen rearranged her blanket and said, “Well. Are any of you going to tell us what exactly happened on the sixth floor, or shall we have to be content with vague reassurances that the games won’t start again?”

“I’ll give you a run-down of everything that happened, if you like,” Ryhad said, his eyes on Norhan and his god-son, “but it wouldn’t be very satisfying. Only Ren knows what happened with the Sleeping King, and he won’t tell us. All any of us have are vivid memories of dying in a variety of ways, and then we were alive again.”

“Now you know how I felt all those times,” Ren said in a harrumph.

Ryhad raised his eyebrows at him. “I don’t suppose you feel like telling us what happened after all?”

“I told you: it’s embarrassing. I’ll tell you when I’m not embarrassed anymore.”

“Don’t see how it can be as bad as fucking for the tower’s pleasure,” Norhan pointed out, and before Ryhad could yell at him, told Erlen conspiratorially, “I heard some props needed ‘mating’ to activate. Crazy, right?”

“Terribly so. It didn’t involve that, did it, Ren? Did the tower take advantage of you?”

“It _didn_ _’t_.”

Ryhad and Norhan had grown so used to the constant refusals that they didn’t push, and Erlen didn’t seem to care all that much. She joined the others in speculating about what could possibly constitute an embarrassing saving of the world, and Ren tuned them out.

Looking out of the window onto the dim light of a summer night in Prague, he put his legs back down and patted his lap. Caïn, curled in a ball on the sofa seat next to him, stretched, and padded over to go back to sleep on Ren’s thighs.

‘ _Doing okay?_ ’ he asked. ‘ _Just tired?_ ’

‘ _Just tired._ ’

‘ _You_ _’re getting old._ ’

‘ _I_ _’ve been old for a long time._ ’

Ren couldn’t disagree, and so stroked him gently, lulling him to sleep again. Caïn was the only one Ren had told about what had happened at the very end. It seemed to have calmed him. There was no stern determination in him anymore: he had had no energy for anything since the sixth floor, but Ren wasn’t about to blame him. He’d kept Caïn’s identity quiet, too: only Ren and Acqen knew the truth, and Acqen seemed to enjoy the sense of superiority that came with keeping a secret too much to tell anyone. All that the others knew was that Caïn spoke now. That was all they really needed to know. They could be happy enough without the rest, for now.

And that was really the point. There was a lot they still didn’t know or understand about the towers — things they would likely never know — and the adults couldn’t help but be worried for the development of the very few children who would grow up in this world, but if they could be happy, Ren thought that was enough. He’d done the best he could; he’d done his part. There wasn’t much space for grand aspirations anymore, and he was content with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mirenwe, welcoming hosgard into a hug: there there. you worked hard  
> jiirva, bitterly sipping chianti: he did not do shit  
> mirenwe: jiirva please for once in your life be comforting to someone who isn't ren  
> jiirva:  
> jiirva:  
> jiirva: [extends a single hand to pat Hosgard's hair]  
> mirenwe: there we go. let's go and get you something to eat.


End file.
